The Plothole Monster Loves This Story
by junodog
Summary: Edward Elric is taken to the PrincetonPlainsboro Teaching Hospital due to some rather strange symptoms...Crossover FMA House M.D., usage of my friend Benji the plothole monster, mangabased.
1. Chapter 1

Yep, finally got around to posting this

Yep, finally got around to posting this. Not much else to say, just be warned: my good friend the plothole monster assisted me in writing this, so if you try to put logic to it, then you're doomed to fail. Unless it's plothole monster logic.

That plothole monster is my best friend. :3

--

It definitely wasn't a peaceful day in Princeton. Partially because it was randomly in this weird dimension where they could be in both the US and the country of Amestris, and partially because nobody seemed to realize just how physically impossible that should be and everyone knew exactly where they were in regards to both countries, which makes no sense because… yeah, it just doesn't. But mostly because doctor Gregory House was working the clinic.

Most of the patients had the sense to do exactly what he told them to do, but a few of them were tricky. House was just about ready to leave for home when he was ordered to check another patient. He walked with a nurse to the examination room, a frown on his face as he listened to the problems.

"Well, to start it off, this kid has troubles sleeping, weight loss, a pain in his left leg that doesn't want to go away, not to mention numerous injuries from a fight, and that's only the beginning. This morning he collapsed in his superior's office, and according to his brother, there's a strange rash going down his right side that couldn't have come from the fight."

"Sounds like this kid's seen better days. What's his name?"

"Edward Elric. He's a state alchemist."

House opened the door to the room in which the alchemist was waiting. He looked from the kid on the bed from the dark-haired soldier standing next to him for a minute before putting down his clipboard.

"Okay, I'm doctor Gregory House, and I'm here to check up on Edward Elric. Why exactly is there a little kid in here?"

The soldier placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and somehow prevented the boy from attacking House. "This little kid is the one who's sick," the man said. "I'm in charge of him."

"And you are?"

"Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist."

"Oh, great. Well, you really don't need to be here, so you can wait outside."

Roy raised an eyebrow at the doctor, but left the room anyway. House closed the door behind him before turning to Edward.

--

Ed watched with a small amount of unease as he watched doctor House open a drawer. The doctor pulled on some gloves and walked up to Ed.

"So… you've been feeling a little down lately."

"I'm fine."

"The fact that your superior dragged your sorry little ass in here says otherwise. Take off your coat."

Ed thought about refusing, but then he remembered that Mustang was right outside the door, snappy gloves on his hands. He decided to listen to House and took off his red coat, leaving his long-sleeved shirt on. House grabbed Ed's right arm and pushed up the sleeve, revealing the bandages beneath. "This from your little fight?" House asked.

"Yeah. What are you doing?"

"I'm doing my job. Now be quiet so I don't mess up and cause your death."

Ed watched as House placed his fingers on a select place on his wrist. Then he watched as House's facial expressions became very confused.

"Are you sure you aren't a zombie?"

Ed jerked his arm away and pointed at it. "This is a prosthetic, moron."

"Then why is it bandaged?"

"Because I broke it."

"Fine. Give me your other hand."

Ed held out his left hand and waited impatiently for House to do his job. House had him do a variety of things, including lying back on the patient bed and letting House look at the bruises on his side. After a while, he gave Ed another command. "Stand up."

Ed stood, not quite knowing what to expect. He watched as House came within inches of him, standing straight and looking down on Ed. "What are you doing?" Ed asked.

"I wanted to see how tall you were. You're pretty short."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't imagining it. Wait here."

--

House left Ed to wait as he went to talk with Roy. The colonel was waiting in the waiting room (fancy that, waiting in a waiting room), and stood up when House approached him.

"And?"

"Has he been stressed out lately?"

"Not any more than usual. He and his brother just got back from a mission."

"What kind of mission?"

"They were looking for something, but they couldn't find it, so they came back."

"How long has this been going on?"

"His brother didn't notice anything unusual until a week ago, the day after they arrived in East City. He didn't say anything until yesterday, and when I called him into my office, he passed out on the floor."

"Has he changed his eating habits at all?"

"No, not that I know of."

House nodded. "Right. Well, from all of this, I can honestly say that it's not anything that we can diagnose without more information."

Roy raised an eyebrow. "You don't know?"

"Not right now. The best thing to do would be to keep him overnight for observation."

Roy hesitated. "Overnight?"

"You have a problem with that?"

Roy shook his head. "I don't have a problem with it, but…"

"But what?"

"Edward has… attitude problems. He doesn't always use common sense. He might be a little difficult to handle."

House decided to use his witty sarcasm in response. "Then it'll make things interesting. I wouldn't want to have a boring patient. Either way, it's the only thing we can do at the moment."

"Of course."

--

Ed watched as House came into the room, a worrisome expression on his face. The doctor didn't move further into the room than the doorway. "We're keeping you overnight. If you have a problem with that, then you'll have to deal with it, because your superior agreed to it, and I have a feeling he has some power over you."

"What? Why?"

"Because at the moment it's impossible to say exactly what's wrong with you, and it'll be easier for all of us if you just stay here. We're moving you to another room soon. Wait here."

Ed watched as House left and Roy entered the room. The colonel sat in a chair next to Ed with a sigh. "Figures you'd make this difficult for me, Fullmetal."

"I'm making this difficult for you?" Ed asked incredulously. "Hey, you're the one who dragged me here!"

"I don't want you getting worse. If you die, then I'll be in a very bad situation, and I have a lot to deal with already."

"It's not that bad!"

"I don't care. You're staying here, and you're going to behave."

"No."

Roy smirked. "Then I'll just have to court-martial you for disobeying a direct order."

"What? No way!"

"I will do it, Fullmetal. You might as well make it easier on the rest of us."

Ed folded his arms. "I'm going to complain about you to the higher-ups."

"Of course you are. And I'll just accidentally tell them your little secret."

Ed tensed. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, no, I would."

"Damn it! You suck, colonel."

Roy smirked again. "If you still have the energy to argue with me, then you'll probably be fine. Don't worry, I'll let your brother visit sometime."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Yeah, way to win me over with that."

"Hey, you brought this on yourself. If you hadn't passed out in my office I wouldn't have thought there was a need to bring you all the way out here. And besides, do you really think it's okay for you to continue what you've been doing when you're in this condition?"

"Then give me some time off. We're kind of at a dead end anyway."

"That's why you're here. I'm not expecting you to do any work for me until you recover. All I want you to do is behave, and I can trust you to do that much, right?" Roy had a worrisome glint in his eyes as he spoke.

Ed grudgingly nodded. "Fine."

--

While Roy was talking to, or rather blackmailing, Ed, Dr. House was talking to one of his colleagues about some thing dealing with Ed, just as Dr. Cuddy walked up. She stood next to House and looked him straight in the eye. "So I heard you're dealing with someone in the military."

"That's right," House replied. "Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Fullmetal? I've heard about him. Isn't he the youngest state alchemist?"

House shrugged. "No idea. He doesn't seem to be the bragging type."

"What's he here for?"

House handed Cuddy the report. "Whatever's wrong with him isn't something normal."

Cuddy looked at the papers House had handed her. As she read them, she muttered to herself, "Unexplained weight loss, insomnia, pain, a rash, dizziness, numerous bruises and cuts from a fight… if I didn't know any better, I'd say this kid is suffering from stress, but if nothing has changed for him in the past few weeks… looks like you've got yourself another puzzle."

"Yep. And I have a feeling this kid's going to be more trouble than he's worth."

Cuddy gave back the papers. "Maybe for you, but if the military's bringing him here, then you'll have to put up with him. Vogler's still on your case, so if you're on an important case, then it'll make you look better and maybe make our lives a little easier."

"Great, just what I always wanted," House said sarcastically.

"Hey. I'm trying to keep you from losing your job. The least you could do is _politely_ take care of this kid, because if you give us a good reputation with the military, then you'll probably have a better chance of keeping your job."

"And you want to keep me here why?"

"Just do it," Cuddy shot back as she stormed off.

House watched her leave before turning back to deal with Ed. The alchemist did not look happy, and House noticed a rather strange look on Roy's face. He shrugged it off and gestured to Ed. "We have a room ready for you. Come with me."

Ed got to his feet and nearly lost his balance as he followed House out of the room. Roy caught him and walked right behind him so that he could help if Ed lost his balance again. House made a note of this gesture as he opened the door to the room Ed would be staying in.

--

And just a note, I just saw that I made some continuity errors in the whole description area, so if you noticed those… Sowwy… I'll fix it once I figure out what the hell I was trying to say. XD

Edit on 4/8: I'm turning off anonymous reviews, because if I get one more "HOMG YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT YOU GOT SUCH-AND-SUCH WRONG" when it's either a. not wrong or b. wrong on purpose, I am going to give up my "try to be nice to stupid people" policy and bitch at people, and I'm only going to be able to do this if I can contact people. Dear god, people, how the hell are you expecting so damn much from a fanfiction on a subject that I barely know anything about? After all, wikipedia can only do so much for something that isn't as important as most of the things in one's life. Also, I'm bitching because I'm pissed off at the world, which is happening more and more lately, since I'm blasting my music with headphones and I can _still_ hear my roommate eating chips.


	2. Chapter 2

Nyahahahaha update from Korea! Whoo!

So yeah, I'm not in the mood to go through and italicize everything, so if you see something that looks like [i then that means it's still copied and pasted from the forum that I copied and pasted this from. Meaning that code doesn't work on and meaning I'll have to go through and edit it again sometime, but right now I'm on my sister's computer and I get the feeling she wants to go to bed, so yeah, not much time.

And I have an annoying cough that doesn't want to go away. I'd strangle my lungs but then I'd probably die.

---------------

Ed sat on the bed, his arms folded across his chest, and quietly watched as a blonde haired doctor came into the room with Dr. House. The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Chase and sat next to Ed while House went to the other side of the room and pulled out his DS. Ed watched him curiously for a moment before Chase spoke up.

"We need you to answer a few questions, all right?"

"Fine."

"It says on your records that your mother is dead. How did she die?"

Ed paused for a minute before giving an answer. "She was sick."

"Do you remember what she had exactly?"

"The plague."

House and Chase exchanged glances. Chase turned back to Ed. "What about your father?"

Ed raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need to know about that bastard?"

"We're trying to figure out if this is something that came from your parents."

"Well, I haven't seen him since I was about four."

"Where is he?"

"How the hell should I know? He just walked out the door one morning and I've never heard anything about him since. We don't even know if he's alive or dead."

"But did you ever hear about him having health problems?"

"No."

"How about you? Is there something that isn't on your record?"

"I doubt it."

"You lost your arm and leg when you were eleven, correct?"

Ed nodded. "You have a weird accent."

"That's because he's from England," House commented from his side of the room.

"Australia," Chase shot back.

"Close enough."

"They're on opposite ends of the world!"

"No they're not."

Ed didn't know what they were talking about, but he had a feeling that House was trying to piss Chase off. After a minute, Chase turned to Ed. "Okay, isn't Australia pretty far away from England?"

Ed shrugged. "I don't know."

"What are you asking him for?" House asked. "He's Amestrian. He doesn't know anything about our world."

"I know that you guys have a lousy president right now," Ed replied. "Or at least that's what I've heard."

House stood up and made his way over to Ed's bed. "Well, your leader isn't so great himself, now is he? Now then, let's talk about something a little more cheerful. How are you feeling right now?"

"Tired."

"Wow, an insomniac who feels tired. I'm in shock. Chase, you finish up here and meet me in my office."

"Yes, sir," Chase replied sarcastically as House left the room. Then he sat down again. "Okay, this might be hard for you to answer, but how did you lose your arm and leg?"

Ed stiffened. "An accident. Why does it matter?"

"Because there's a slight chance that you might have gotten an infection that hasn't affected you until now. Can you go into detail?"

"It happened at our old house, and my brother brought me to our neighbor's for help. They make automail and such."

"Edward, you didn't answer the question."

"Yes I did."

"No, you only answered part of it. We need to know exactly how you lost your arm and leg in order to be able to make a diagnosis."

Ed stared straight ahead for a while in silence. "It was a failed transmutation."

Chase made a note on his clipboard and stood up. "All right, that's all I need to know for the moment. Try to get some sleep now, okay? You need it."

As Chase left the room, Ed lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. He lay there for ten minutes before opening his eyes again. He let out a sigh of aggravation. Even though he was exhausted, his body wasn't letting him sleep.

----------------

"So, the kid lost his arm and leg in a failed transmutation, and went on to get automail and join the military. And now, four years later, he's having problems, most likely from his fancy new limbs." House looked at his team. "Any ideas?"

"It could be an allergic reaction," Cameron said. "It doesn't explain all the symptoms, though."

"No, and we checked him for anything that would cause him to lose weight the way he has been, so we have at least one mystery on our hands," Foreman added.

"Maybe it's more than one thing," Chase suggested. "We don't know of anything that would explain all the symptoms, but a combination of two or three different things-"

"But the odds of him getting two diseases [iand[/i developing an allergy to his automail are pretty slim," Cameron interrupted. It was at that moment that House figured something out.

"But our patient was in a remote village whose inhabitants are much less advanced than the rest of the country, and Amestris isn't a technological wonderland as it is."

"You're saying he got sick there?"

"It makes sense, doesn't it? He went down there, got into a fight in which people attacked him with [ivery[/i dirty knives, and he got infected. Less than a week later, he begins showing symptoms of these infections and now he's here."

"But the timing…"

"Have you looked at his medical records? This kid has terrible luck, and allergies never develop at convenient times."

"So what do we do?"

House thought about it for a minute. "First thing's first. We'll take the kid's arm and leg off and see if it does anything."

"But we can't get rid of the metal that's directly connected to his body!"

"No, but if his side improves, then we'll know it's an allergy, and then we can do something about it."

---------------

Ed awoke with a start. He looked around the room, trying to calm down after his nightmare. Once he had recovered, he looked at the clock. He swore. It had only been an hour since he had finally fallen asleep. [iSo much for that,[/i he thought as a familiar suit of armor came into the room. "Brother?" Al asked cautiously. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah. Hey, Al."

"Are you feeling better?"

Ed shook his head. "No, not really. When did you get here?"

"Not too long ago. Lieutenant Havoc's here, too, but he's talking to someone right now."

Ed nodded. "Hey, Al, you don't think that me being sick has anything to do with… what we did, do you?"

"No, brother. Why would you think that?"

"They said there was a chance that it could be something like that."

"Brother, it could be anything."

"I know, but…" Ed trailed off as a black man came into the room. Al stepped back and sat down.

"Did you get any sleep?" he asked as he walked up to Ed.

"Some," Ed muttered as he reached his right hand up to scratch his head. The man grabbed it and shook his head. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." The man pushed his arm down onto the bed next to Ed's head and let go. "Leave it there for now, okay?"

Ed nodded.

"Who are you?" Al asked nervously.

"I'm Dr. Foreman. I'm part of Dr. House's team. How are you feeling, Edward?"

Ed reached up with his other hand to scratch his head, and was surprised to see that Foreman didn't stop him. "Not much different from earlier."

"Do you know how long you were asleep?"

"About an hour."

"Just an hour?"

Ed nodded.

Foreman sighed. "It's better than nothing, I guess. Listen, judging by the rashes on your side and the pain in your leg and shoulder, we're assuming you've developed an allergic reaction to the metal used in your automail."

"An allergic reaction?"

"That's right. That's why we want to take off your limbs. If we can be positive that nothing is touching those areas except for the parts directly connected to your body, then we can see if it really is an allergy."

Ed thought about it for a minute before relenting. He waited patiently for Foreman to take off the limbs and take them out of the room. Once he had done so, Foreman came back in and began covering the remaining metal with something. "This is just so you don't accidentally touch it. If it bothers you, we can find something else, okay?"

"Fine."

Once Foreman was done, Ed pulled his shirt back on with some effort. Luckily, he managed to get it on before Al or Foreman had the chance to offer his help. The doctor smiled and shook his head. "At least you can still do most things on your own. That's a pretty good sign."

Ed nodded and lay back on his bed before realizing something. "But is it really just that?"

Foreman shook his head. "No, but it's part of it. We're still working on the other symptoms."

Al looked from Ed to Foreman and spoke with fear in his voice. "What… what happens if it's really an allergy?"

Foreman looked away. "Then we'll have to do something about it. Metal allergies can be fatal."

"Then…"

Foreman looked questioningly at Al. "What is it?"

"This armor… it's the same as brother's arm and leg… Does that mean I won't be able to be near him again if he really is allergic?"

"You can just take that off, can't you?" Foreman asked kindly.

"No. He can't do that." Ed bluntly stated.

"Why not?"

"He… he just can't."

Foreman looked at the two. "Then no, he can't get near you without risking your life. The closest he can safely get is about how far away he is from you right now. I'm sorry."

Ed and Al watched numbly as Foreman left the room. Then Ed fell back on the bed and covered his eyes with his arm. "Damn it…"

"Brother… I'm sorry…"

"It's not your fault, Al." Ed tried to smile. "This is just another reason to get your body back, isn't it? We can work harder once I'm out of here."

Al shook his head. "But…"

"Al, don't worry about it. Everything will be fine."

Al shook his head. "Maybe it will be, but right now it doesn't feel that way."

Ed was about to question his brother's response when Al got up and left the room. Ed watched Al walk away until he couldn't see him any more. Then he lay on his side, his back to the door, and squeezed his eyes shut. [iI'm sorry, Al.[/i

-----------------

Ed was asleep when Chase went in to check on his side the next day. When he saw that it was improving, Chase sighed. Part of him had hoped that they were wrong, because he had the feeling Ed wouldn't take the news so well.

Chase was about to leave the room when he heard Ed move behind him. He turned around to see Ed lying on his back. His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at Chase.

Chase walked back over to the bed. "Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"No." Ed was staring pointedly at the wall. Chase observed his face for a moment before coming to a realization.

"Have you been crying?"

"No."

"Then why does it look like you've been crying?" Chase asked.

Ed opened his mouth to respond, but he closed it after a moment. Chase sat down next to Ed.

"What's wrong?"

Ed was quiet.

"Where's your brother?"

"He went back to the hotel."

"Why?"

Ed was quiet for a few minutes before giving an answer. "He didn't say."

"Did you two have a fight?"

"No."

"Did he say something to you?"

"No."

"Then why are you so upset?"

"I'm not upset."

"Then why were you crying?"

Ed glared at Chase, and the doctor got the feeling that Ed wouldn't say anything about it. Chase sighed and decided to change the subject. "How's your head?" he asked, gesturing to the bandage on Ed's forehead.

"Fine."

"Does it still hurt?"

"Not really." At that moment, a nurse came in with a tray of food. She set it down and left again, and Chase sat down, wanting to be sure that Ed did indeed eat all his food.

-------------

Ed stared at the tray for a minute, wondering why Chase felt the need to accompany him. It didn't take long for him to realize that if he was losing weight, they would want to make sure he was actually eating properly. He ate silently, wishing that the bottle of opaque liquid sitting on the tray didn't exist.

As soon as he finished the rest of his lunch, Ed leaned back on his bed and folded his arms, staring pointedly across the room. There was no way in hell he was going to touch the milk. No way at all.

"Hey, aren't you going to drink your milk?" Chase asked.

"No."

"Is there something wrong with it?"

Ed rolled his eyes. "It's milk."

"You don't like milk?"

Ed sighed. [iDoes this have to happen every time I go into a hospital?[/i "No."

"Well, sorry, but you're going to have to drink it."

"Why?"

"Because you're in a hospital and you don't have a choice."

"Not gonna happen."

Chase stood up. "Do I have to force you?"

Ed narrowed his eyes. "I'd like to see you try."

Chase let out an exasperated sigh and walked out of the room. Ed watched with smug satisfaction before lying back down. He lay on his side, facing the door, and closed his eyes. He hoped to himself that he would be able sleep at least a little, but that hope was a hopeless hope that was so utterly hopeless that no hope could be found at all in the hope.

-------------

House and his crew watched as Chase entered the room and sat down with an angry look on his face. House waited a minute before bringing up the subject at hand. "So what do we have?"

"It [iis[/i an allergic reaction."

"Then why the long face? Were you hoping I was wrong so you could have a little self-esteem boost for yourself with the knowledge that I'm a screw-up?" House asked sarcastically.

Chase glared at the table. "Edward is acting like a five-year-old. He's refusing to drink his milk and I got the feeling that he wanted to kill me for even suggesting it."

Cameron looked at Chase. "So he doesn't like milk. Big deal. We can just give him something else."

House paused. Then he stood up. "No, he needs to learn to like it. I'm going to go talk to him. You guys find out who made his automail and see if you can get them to come out here."

Ed was trying to sleep when House came into his room with some medical equipment. House was loud enough to get Ed's attention as he closed the blinds in the room. Ed sat up and looked questioningly at House.

"Hey there, Tiny Tim. How are you feeling this fine afternoon?"

"I'm not short," Ed growled. "And who the hell is Tiny Tim?"

House shook his head. "You've never heard of [uA Christmas Carol[/u? What a pity."

Ed raised an eyebrow. "I don't really care about literature."

"That's too bad. Now lie down."

"Why?"

House sighed dramatically as he took a pair of gloves from a drawer. "Because you're being a stubborn moron and not drinking your milk, and due to circumstances that would probably be too complex for your little brain to understand, I am going to have to examine your rectum. But don't worry, I'll be sure to be thorough."

Ed's eyes widened, and he scooted back on the bed. "Uh… you really don't have to…"

House dramatically snapped on his gloves. "I'm afraid I do. Unless you'd rather drink your milk like a good little boy."

"Enough with the little!" Ed snapped. "Besides, I don't see how these two are related."

"They're not," House replied, pulling out a creepy-looking tool. "But hey, what are you going to do? Colonel Mustang gave me permission to do what I have to in order to prevent your death."

Ed looked from House's face to the object in his hands, and back again. It only took a creepy grin on House's part to get Ed to give in.

"Okay, you win!" the alchemist said in a panicked voice. "I'll drink it."

"Aw, and I was looking forward to doing this," House said in a sarcastic voice. He pulled off his gloves and sat at the foot of Ed's bed. "Okay, go ahead."

Ed glared at House as he reached for the milk. House watched with a strange sense of satisfaction as he watched Ed drink. As soon as Ed was finished, House applauded.

"Wow, I'm impressed. How does it feel to be such a good boy?"

"I want to puke," Ed replied.

"Then you need to let your taste buds mature."

Ed glared at House before suddenly clutching his stomach. House felt his feelings of satisfaction disappear as Ed threw up before falling back on the bed and passing out.

--------------

I'm also going to be in Japan in like two days. YAY FOREIGN COUNTRIES I'M SO EXCITED RANDOM JIBBERISH ETC. MULTIPLE EXCLAMATION POINTS


	3. Chapter 3

Good lord, 23 reviews so far and only two chapters out (not including this one). That makes me insanely happy. x3

Mmm, tasty, tasty angst. Oh, and I got to watch an episode of House on the plane ride home, that was awesome. :D

--------------

Several hours later, Dr. Cuddy came into House's office and stood in front of his desk with a _very_ angry look on her face. "Are you _trying_ to lose your job?" she asked as House put away his yoyo.

"What are you talking about?" House asked.

"Your patient just woke up. He told me what happened before he lost consciousness."

House stood up. "He's awake already?" He began walking to the door, Cuddy following close behind.

"That's not the point! You threatened him and forced him to drink something that made him sick!"

"It's not the milk that made him throw up," House said as he made his way to Ed's room. "We checked."

"And you expect me to believe that it has nothing to do with you?"

"Yes."

Cuddy stopped. "Well, I don't. Colonel Mustang's going to be here any minute now, and he's not going to be happy. This is the military we're dealing with, and I don't want your actions to cause this hospital to get a bad reputation with them."

"Speak of the devil…" House said as Roy came walking up to them. Cuddy immediately took charge.

"I'm sorry about interrupting your work, Colonel, but you did say to call if any problems arose."

"Not a problem," Roy replied. "What happened?"

Cuddy glared at House and replied, "Why don't you ask Dr. House?" before stalking off.

Roy looked at House with a mix of suspicion and confusion. House sighed and sat down on a nearby couch. Roy sat down next to him and listened quietly as House explained the situation, leaving out certain parts that he figured wouldn't be good for Roy to hear. Once he finished, Roy rested his chin on his hand and gazed pensively at the wall opposite from them.

"That's… impressive."

"What's that supposed to mean?" House asked, assuming that Roy was insulting him.

"You're the first person who hasn't had to resort to force when it comes to getting him to drink milk. Not even his brother has that much control over him. What exactly did you tell him?"

House paused. "Well, you know, I gave him a choice, and he didn't like the other option I gave him, so…"

"It must have been pretty bad if he chose milk…"

"Most people will give in if you make them choose between what you want them to do and a rectal exam. But I guess it doesn't work if you aren't a doctor."

"That's too bad… So what else is going on, other than that incident?"

House sighed. "There's more than one thing wrong with him, but at the moment we only know one of the problems."

"Which is?"

"It looks as if he's developed an allergy to the metal in his automail, so we've contacted his mechanic. If she can't do anything about it, then the only option we have left is to remove it completely. Of course, that would mean he'd have to get another set installed."

Roy stared at the wall. "I see."

"So he'd have to take some time off. And I mean a lot of time." House reached for his bottle of Vicodin and popped one of the pills into his mouth. "And he wouldn't be able to touch certain metals without risking another allergic reaction, including that armor."

Roy blinked. "I guess that explains why Alphonse was so upset the other day."

"You know, he _could_ just take that off."

Roy shook his head. "That's not possible."

"…Okay, then." House stood up. "As for the other problems, we're still not sure what he has. We're also waiting for some test results, so that might show something."

"All right."

As Roy turned to leave the hospital, House went to check on Ed. Something was bothering him. Ed shouldn't have woken up so soon…

-------------

Ed was staring at the ceiling when House entered the room. House sat down next to the alchemist and grabbed his wrist, looking at his watch as he checked Ed's pulse.

"Something wrong?" Ed asked.

"Considering what all happened today, I think the answer to that is obvious." House checked a few more things before popping some more Vicodin into his mouth. "We called your mechanic. She's going to be here as soon as she can."

Ed groaned. "Why does she have to be here?"

"Because she's the one who installed your automail. She knows you better than we do."

Ed tried to sit up, but House pushed him down again. "Anyway, it looks like you _are_ allergic, so we're going to have to get rid of the metal."

"But… wouldn't that mean getting automail installed all over again?"

"Yep."

"But that would take a year."

House took his hand off of Ed's chest. "Three years, actually, unless you rush it, and that wouldn't be such a good idea."

Ed sat up. "I don't have time for that."

"Sure you do. You're only fifteen."

"That's not what I meant." Ed curled his one hand into a fist. "There's something I need to do."

"Then have your brother do it for you."

"You just missed the point. It's something I need to do for him."

"Is it a surprise party?" House asked sarcastically.

"No! It's something we have to do together!"

"Then just wait a while! I'm sure he'll understand why it has to be delayed."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Oh, right, like having to wait another year without being able to do anything won't make him hate me even more for what I did."

"He doesn't hate you," House said in exasperation.

"How do you know?"

"I asked him," House lied. In truth, he didn't have a clue as to whether Al hated his brother, but he had a very good feeling that Ed was worried about nothing. Either way, he needed to get Ed to listen to him. "He doesn't hate you."

"Maybe not, but he definitely blames me for what happened."

House stood up. "Okay, fine. If this is all just some huge barrier in your oh-so-divine quest, then I'll get out of your way. You can keep studying underground. I'll be sure to let your brother know to bury one of your little alchemy books along with you."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You want to know?" House asked. "Okay, fine. I got stuck with a shitty dad, my leg's fucked up so bad that I have to take painkillers, I'm a drug addict, and I have to deal with moronic patients who don't seem to realize that it's a very good idea to listen to me. Now do you want me to tell you what's wrong with you?" When Ed didn't speak, House continued. "You're sick. You're losing weight even though we're giving you plenty to eat. You're allergic to your automail. Not to mention everything else. The point is, your body's turning against you and if we don't do something about it, you're going to die very soon. But, if you really want to get out of here, we can give you some basic allergy treatments and you can have almost twice that amount of time to do whatever it is you need to do before you die."

It was at that moment that Ed realized the true gravity of the situation. He stared blankly at House in shock. "You're lying…"

"Oh, yes, the doctor who's trying to save your life is just telling you one lie after another to see how you'll react. It's all one big game to me."

Ed brought his hand up to his face. "No… there's no way… I can't… I promised… I promised him…"

"What did you promise?" House asked.

"I… he… he lost something. I swore I'd get it back for him."

House sat back down. "Do you want to keep that promise?"

Ed nodded. "I have to."

"Okay, then you have a choice. You can do what I tell you to do and make your brother wait for a year. Or you can go back to helping your brother for a few weeks and then leave him to do the rest. For the rest of his life." House shifted his position on the stool. "You know, I think it's a better idea to make him wait."

It was quiet in the room for a while. Finally, Ed relented. "Okay."

House got up and grabbed a tissue from the nearby box and gave it to Ed. As Ed took it, House sat down again. "Well then, now that we have a solution for the allergy problem, let's move on to something more important. You've still been losing weight, and we don't know why."

"You think I know?" Ed asked as he lay back down.

"No, but I want to know more about that transmutation that made you lose your limbs."

Ed rolled onto his side, facing away from House. "Why does that matter?"

"It just does. Now tell me."

"No."

House stood up. "Okay, then I guess I'll have to find out for myself. By examining your rectum."

Ed tensed. "We… we tried to bring our mom back."

House started. "Okay, that wasn't so hard, was it?" He stood up. "Oh, and one more thing. You definitely aren't getting enough sleep, so are you willing to take something that'll help with that?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Ed watched as House went for the door. "Wait, is there something I can take for the allergy? Not right now, but when I get out… I don't want to have to stay away from my brother."

"Probably."

As House left and looked back into the room from outside, he could tell that Ed was somewhat relieved. The alchemist's eyes were closed, and when House went in later to give him something for his insomnia, Ed was asleep. House drugged him anyway and left for home a few minutes later.

--------------

Winry sat patiently in the waiting room as the woman at the front desk contacted whoever it was she was supposed to meet. Once the woman hung up, she turned to Winry with a polite smile. "Okay, go up to insert directions to Ed's room here. They're expecting you."

"Thank you," Winry replied before grabbing her toolbox and making her way to Ed's room. Once outside the door, she found herself being introduced to Cameron and Chase. House and Foreman were inside the room, but at the moment, Winry didn't care about that. She was more interested in why she had been called over.

Cameron was the first to speak. She started out by thanking Winry before going on to the reason why they had asked her to come. Winry frowned as she listened to the explanation and Ed's newly developed allergies.

"…And since you're his mechanic, we thought it would be best if you were involved, since you know more about automail than we do."

Winry thought about it for a while. "So it's definitely an allergy?" she asked, looking through the glass at her childhood friend. Ed was talking to Foreman. He hadn't noticed Winry yet.

"It has to be," Chase replied. "There's nothing else it could be."

Winry looked back at Ed. "Maybe he could just transmute it into a different metal. If I told him how…"

"But wouldn't that be dangerous?" Chase asked.

"It's not as risky as making him do it all over again, and it would save a lot of time and effort."

"But this goes beyond just changing the metal. He has to know enough about his body to make sure everything stays in the right place."

"He knows enough."

Cameron and Chase exchanged glances before looking back at Winry. "We'd have to make sure it's all right first."

---------------

Ed stared at the ceiling, wishing someone would talk to him. After Winry had come in for a brief visit and to say what she had in mind for him, everyone had left, and House had even drugged him to get him to sleep, but here he was, three hours later, and he was awake and alone. Then he heard pounding footsteps in the hall. He looked outside to see House limp-running as fast as he could. A minute later, he saw Dr. Cuddy go by, a look of sheer rage on her face. Ed blinked and lay back down. _Just like Mustang and Hawkeye…_

----------------

"House!"

House tripped over himself and barely stopped himself from falling face-first on the floor. By the time he recovered, Cuddy had caught up with him. She stood in front of him, blocking his escape route. "Are you seriously planning on cutting off a part of this kid's body? While he's sick and losing weight?"

"No."

"Then why did I hear something about that?"

House rolled his eyes. "It's called a change in plans. Edward's little childhood friend slash mechanic is going to teach him how to transmute it into a metal that won't cause an allergic reaction."

Cuddy stared incredulously at House. "Are you kidding? That's even worse!"

House began walking, realizing he wouldn't be able to get rid of Cuddy but not wanting to stand in the middle of the little kid section of the hospital. "He can do it."

"And what makes you so sure of that?"

"First off, Miss Rockbell happens to be an expert at what she does. Second, that pipsqueak _is_ good enough to be a state alchemist. Third…" House stopped and looked around to make sure there wasn't anybody around to hear him. "He knows more than he should about the human body."

Cuddy looked at House in confusion. "What are you talking about? How would he know something like that?"

House shrugged and continued walking. "That's his secret."

"And yours, apparently. What did he-" Cuddy stopped dead in her tracks. "Oh my god. Just like that other patient from a couple years ago…"

"Exactly. He knows what he needs to know about the body, and that girl can tell him the rest."

Cuddy looked down the hall at Ed's room. "Does Mustang know about his… secret?"

"Probably. Are you finished annoying me yet?"

Cuddy glared at House. "Fine. Go… do whatever you're supposed to do."

-----------------

Winry looked around the room with awe. She had heard that technology was more advanced here, but it hadn't really sunk in until that exact moment. She looked around for a moment before remembering what she was here for.

Chase pulled the automail limbs out from some hidden place. Winry looked at the leg, glad to see that Ed hadn't messed it up, but when she saw the arm, she stared at in shock. Then she grabbed the arm and headed for the door. "I'm gonna kill him!"

At that exact moment, House had come into the room, and he gently grabbed Winry's sleeve. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, _whoa._ You can't just go kill someone we're trying to keep alive. Doesn't that defeat the point of him being here in the first place?"

Winry pulled away and held the arm out. "Look what he DID! I slaved away for _days_ to make this, and he completely trashed it!"

"Not completely. It still works," Chase said.

Winry turned on him. "That's not the point! He-" Winry stopped in the middle of her sentence and brought the automail up to her nose. Everyone in the room watched as she tentatively sniffed the metal.

House walked up to her and looked over her shoulder. "Okay, either you're addicted to the wonderful smell of oily metal or you have some strange prophetic power that allows you to see into Edward's past just by sniffing his automail. Care to tell us which it is?"

Winry nearly smacked House in the head with the arm, but he ducked at the last minute. "It's not that! It's…" Winry looked at the arm again. "That idiot…"

"Okay, seriously, what are you talking about?" Chase asked.

"Ed must have bought some new oil or something for maintenance. It's not the kind I told him to use, either."

"And…?"

Winry sighed and put the arm down. "It's a kind that a lot of people are allergic to when it's mixed with the kind I use. But it's also not something most people use because it's expensive and hard to find."

"So you're saying he isn't allergic to the metal, but to this… whatever you're talking about?"

Winry nodded. "Most likely."

"But how can we tell?" Chase asked.

House sighed. "Isn't it obvious? We get rid of it and see what happens."

----------------

I wish _I_ had divine automail-sniffing powers…

But I'm sad, guys. I bought three Asian Kung-Fu Generation CDs while in Japan, and I can't put them on my iPod because my computer's a bitch and it rejects everything except for DVDs. I can't burn CDs or put music on my computer, and I can't back anything up on CDs, and I CAN'T LISTEN TO MY FMTDAMNED MUSIC ON MY FMTDAMNED IPOD AND I HATE MY LIFE!

But don't worry, I'll refrain from slitting my wrists until I've finished all the stories I have on as well as some others that I've just been too lazy to put up…

Anyway, you should feel loved. I went through the effort to put up a chapter without even having my computer on hand. And even though it took about the same amount of work as putting up a chapter WITH my computer would have taken… The point is, I went through the effort, right? FEEL LOVED!

Oh, and I gotta congratulate Renneh on predicting part of the story in her review, even though they didn't end up having to do that whole thing… Anyway, have some pie from my closet rainbow!


	4. Chapter 4

So, how about those updating problems with eh? Those were a pain in the ass.

-------------

It was next to impossible for Ed to understand what was going on. He had been given some sleeping medication, but for whatever reason, it wasn't having the desired effect, because Ed was beginning to wake up, although he didn't mind, considering how bad his dreams had been.

As far as he could tell, however, he wasn't in his room. Instead, he heard the sounds of running water, and he felt someone holding him upright as someone else rinsed off the stump that attached to his arm. His first thought was that they were cleaning it off so that he wouldn't get infected during the surgery, but that didn't make sense. Unless they had planned it for today…

After a while, he was awake enough to open his eyes and look around. He was in a crazy-looking room that he hadn't been in before, and the one who was cleaning his automail was wearing a mask, but Ed recognized the hair. It was Chase.

Chase looked up into Ed's eyes and paused. "You're awake already?" he asked. His voice seemed muffled, probably because of the mask.

Ed grunted a reply, not quite able to speak coherently yet. Chase went back to scrubbing. "It's not your automail that's the problem. The oil you bought in that town reacted with the oil you normally use and caused you to have an allergic reaction. We're getting rid of it right now."

_Ah, shit… That was stupid of me…_

"Can you sit up on your own?" Chase asked.

Ed nodded, and soon the hands moved away from his back, and Foreman came into view. Ed waited as Foreman began cleaning off his leg, feeling rather embarrassed with the current situation. At least they had left his underwear on.

As soon as they were finished, the two doctors helped Ed get changed and brought him back to his room. "All right," Chase said as Ed sat on his bed. "Now that we got rid of the contaminant, your leg and shoulder should stop hurting by the end of the day. Winry's also repairing your limbs, so you'll have those back as soon as she's done. How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"Still tired?"

"Yeah."

Foreman took Ed's wrist and checked his pulse. They checked a few more things before Chase left to talk with someone outside. Foreman stayed with Ed for a while longer.

"Well, we still don't know why you're having so much trouble staying asleep, but House says he might know why you're losing weight. He hasn't told us more than that, but he's been putting a lot of time into researching, so there's a very good chance he'll have the answer soon." Foreman looked up at the clock. "Anyway, it's going to be a while before someone comes in with dinner, so you might as well try to get some sleep, okay?"

Ed nodded. "Okay." He laid his head down and stared at the ceiling for a while as Foreman checked a few small details before leaving the room. Just as the doctor was leaving, however, Ed realized something. "Do bad dreams have anything to do with being sick?"

Foreman stopped and looked back. "Maybe. It depends on the situation. Have you been having bad dreams lately?"

Ed nodded. "I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but lately I've had more of them than usual…"

"What are they about?"

Ed hesitated. He realized that it was probably important to share the details, but he honestly didn't want to remember. "Just… memories. It's happened before, just… not this much."

Foreman nodded. "Sounds like that might have something to do with your insomnia. Thanks for telling me." And with that, Foreman left the room, and Ed closed his eyes, hoping that for once, he wouldn't have to relive the night he had destroyed his brother's life.

------------

House hung up the phone just as Chase and Foreman came into the room. House looked at them expectantly. "And?"

"And what?" Chase asked.

"You two wouldn't come in here with perfectly matching expressions on your face unless something unexpected happened. You also wouldn't come all the way over here to tell me that something horribly wrong happened. So," House leaned back in his chair. "What did you two figure out?"

Chase spoke first. "He woke up when we were cleaning him off."

"Aw, poor little kid, he must have been terrified," House said, intrigued by the fact that not even the drugs were keeping the kid asleep.

"No, he wasn't. I thought he would have freaked out, but he was very calm, even to the point where I was wondering if he was really conscious."

House was even more intrigued. "And what does Foreman have to add to this?" he asked, staring intently at the black man.

"He says he's been having nightmares. And they've been occurring almost every time he falls asleep."

"What kind of nightmares?" House asked, now so intrigued that he had to up the sarcasm in order to appear only mildly intrigued. "Is he afraid of the furry monsters under the bed?"

"More like memories he's been trying to suppress."

House nodded. "He's probably feeling bad because he has to leave little bro at the hotel while the nice people in white coats do their little tests and now they can't go off on their usual adventures. We'll put him on something to try to get him away from the dreamy sleep and see if that does anything."

"What about the weight loss?" Foreman asked.

"I have something special for that," House replied.

"What?" Chase asked.

"It's a secret. Maybe I'll tell you later, but," House paused for dramatic effect. "Right now only _I_ can know," he finished in a low voice.

The two doctors looked at House with raised eyebrows before slowly backing away. House picked up his DS and started playing whatever game he had in there at the moment. "I want one of you to be around him to see what's going on when he's asleep. See if he talks, moves around more than he should, if he wakes up in a panic, et cetera. I'm going to talk to his little friend and see if she knows anything about this."

--------------

Winry was so absorbed in her work that it took her a minute to hear the knocking on the hotel room door. She sighed, put down her tools, and opened the door. She was surprised, and a little worried, to see House standing in the hallway.

"Is… something wrong?" she asked tentatively.

"Besides the obvious? No," House replied. "I just want to talk."

"About what?"

"About your little friend in the hospital. What else is there to talk about?"

Winry glared at House before letting him into the room. "Okay, what do you want to know?" She asked as she sat down at the table she was using to repair Ed's arm.

House sat down in another chair and put his cane down. "Has he ever had problems sleeping before? Or nightmares?"

Winry thought about it for a while. "He had a few really bad ones when he was getting his automail installed, but it was closer to the beginning, right after… _that_ happened…"

"And by _that_, I assume you're talking about them trying to bring back their mother?"

Winry looked up. "He told you about that?"

"Yep. What all happened with his nightmares?"

Winry began working on Ed's arm again. She felt the need to do _something_ with her hands. "He'd just start talking in his sleep. I usually woke him up when it got to the point that he was scaring me, but most of the time he'd get over it and keep sleeping."

House was quiet for a minute. He seemed deep in thought. Winry continued working for a while before the silence got to her. "Why do you want to know?" she asked.

"Because he's suffering from some form of insomnia and we're trying to figure out what exactly is causing it."

Winry raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was just the automail that was causing a problem."

"It's one of the problems, and since you're so brilliant, it's not a problem anymore."

"But… he didn't say anything about really being sick…"

House raised an eyebrow. "Nothing? He hasn't said a word about it to you?"

"Obviously not," Winry snapped. She went back to working on the arm for a while before sighing and putting down her wrench. "He never tells me anything."

"Then… you wouldn't know much about this other than what you already told me, would you?"

Winry shook her head. "I don't see him that often. You should ask Al."

Luckily for House, Al was staying in the hotel room across the hall from Winry, so all House had to do was stand up and walk about ten feet. He knocked on the door, but nobody answered. He knocked again. Still no answer. He turned back to look at Winry, who was watching from her doorway.

"Is he even in there?" House asked.

"I guess not."

"Well, when you see him, tell him I want to talk to him."

"Sure."

Winry watched as House made his way to the elevator before getting back to work on the automail.

----------------

Al sat in the hallway, staring at the room that contained his older brother. He stared at it until he saw Chase leave the room. The doctor noticed Al right away and walked over.

"You can go see him now. He's awake."

Al nodded, but didn't move. Chase watched him for a minute before sitting down next to him. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"Is it really okay for me to go in there?" Al asked, avoiding the doctor's gaze.

"Yes, it is. Edward's been showing signs of improvement since we cleaned him off. He isn't allergic to metal."

Al continued to stare at the room until Chase gave up and left. After a while, Al got up and entered the room. Ed was staring at the ceiling, and his eyes were glazed over. It took him a minute to notice Al.

"How are you doing, brother?" Al asked as he sat down next to Ed.

"Not so good. I threw up again a while ago."

"Aw, brother…"

"They said something about having me take some weird nutrition pill or something like that to help me gain weight, whatever that means…"

"You're still losing weight?"

"Yeah…"

"Well… at least you aren't having allergy problems anymore, and I don't have to worry about hurting you on accident…"

Ed smiled. "Yeah, that's always good. I wouldn't want you to have to worry like that… and this means I'll get out sooner, too."

"But what if…"

Ed propped himself up on his one elbow. "What if what?"

"Nothing."

"Al…"

Al stood up. "I have to go. I'll be back when you're getting your arm put back in, okay?" With that, Al left the room before Ed had a chance to reply.

---------------

House leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as Chase came into the room. He sat down across from House and cleared his throat. House looked at him and let the chair legs hit the floor with a thump.

"And?"

"He didn't have any nightmares this time, but he did vomit a few minutes after he woke up. He's also feeling weaker, so I think it would be a very good idea to put him on that medication _now_."

"Yeah, we're going to put him on it… but we're going to wait until after he gets his arm and leg back."

"Why do you need to wait?"

"Do you know how painful it is to get automail attached to your body? We can't have him on a special diet if he's going to have something like that attached."

"Then why can't we just wait until he's healthy enough to be checked out to reattach them?"

"Because he wants to have his arm and leg. And it'll be easier if he can take care of himself when it comes to walking and all that jazz."

"So you're taking the easy way out."

"No, I'm taking the keep-the-high-ranking-soldiers-who-are-protecting-this-hospital-from-that-one-group-of-terrorists-happy way out. If that kid leaves this hospital, so does our protection, and I don't really feel like being blown up by some crazy people who want to take over."

"We wouldn't need their protection if he wasn't here in the first place! They're only here because he is!"

House leaned back in his chair again. "And that's the only reason they can legally be here, since this hospital isn't technically part of their country."

"So? What's so important about that?"

House gave a sigh of exasperation. "Those terrorists couldn't care less about our little patient. They'd attack us no matter what if they had the chance, and the only way we can be protected is if there is someone worth protecting here. Why do you think Colonel Mustang brought that pipsqueak in here in the first place?"

"Because he's sick enough that this is the only place that can keep him alive and find out what's wrong with him."

"But Mustang didn't know that until Ed was checked in."

Chase paused. "So he's doing this on purpose?"

"Exactly. So, got any more complaints?"

Chase shook his head. "His brother stopped by to visit, but he was too nervous to go in for a while."

House sat up. "Is that so? Did he say anything interesting?"

"Not really, he was just worried that he'd cause another allergic reaction, and I told him he wouldn't."

"Wow, that's so exciting I just swallowed my nonexistent gum. Keep watching him and tell me immediately if anything develops."

--------------

Winry came in the next day, Ed's arm completely repaired. She walked through the hospital and surprised everyone in House's team except for House, who happened to be elsewhere at the moment. Cameron was the first to say anything.

"You got it done already?" she asked Winry.

"Yeah, it wasn't too hard to fix this time around," Winry replied.

"That was pretty fast," Foreman said. "He's lucky to have someone like you helping him," he added with a smile.

Winry felt very proud at that moment, but she chose to hide it as she put the arm down. "He's definitely paying extra this time."

Within half an hour, Winry was sitting in Ed's room, ready to connect the limbs to Ed's body. She tried to ignore the doctors in the room. They were there in case something went wrong, but she knew nothing would go wrong. She set everything up and waited a moment before turning to Ed. "You ready?" She noticed the doctors brace themselves for the scream that would probably follow.

"No."

Winry pulled the connector thingy and connected the automail to Ed's nerves.

"I said I wasn't ready!" Ed practically shouted after a second.

"So? It was more of a warning than anything, Ed. You should know that by now."

"…That's low."

Winry stood up. "Is it working?"

Ed did the usual tests and nodded. "Yeah, it's fine."

"Good. Next comes your leg."

Once Ed was all automailed up, Winry began putting her tools away. She said a quick farewell to Ed before walking with Cameron out of the room.

"He didn't scream at all," Cameron commented as they walked through the hospital.

"No. He rarely does."

"Why's that?"

Winry shrugged. "He's always been strong like that. It only took him a year to get through the surgery and rehabilitation. He really pushed himself."

"The pain doesn't bother him?"

"No, it does, but he's better at dealing with physical pain than he is with emotional pain." Winry paused before muttering, "and he had to deal with both at the same time…"

As they got on the elevator, Cameron gave Winry a questioning look. "What do you mean by that?"

Winry looked down at her tool box. "He would cry just about every night because he was afraid that Al blamed him for what happened. He said he was too afraid to ask…"

They came to the entrance, where someone from the military was waiting for Winry. She said goodbye to Cameron before leaving, hoping that her next meeting with Ed wouldn't be anywhere near a hospital.

--------------

I dunno if I'll get any updates anytime soon… I'm getting ready to go off to college and junk, so I need to worry about all that first.


	5. Chapter 5

"_Brother… there's something wrong here…"_

_He heard a scream, and looked to see something… dissolving… his brother's body. He tried to help, but he saw that one of the black arms was doing the same to his leg. He looked back over at his brother. Al was still screaming, but now he was crying and reaching out with his hand, in the hopes that Ed would be able to grab it and save him from whatever was assailing them._

_He couldn't do anything but watch as his only family was taken away from him._

"Al…" Ed opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the same familiar hospital room, and someone was standing nearby. Ed looked more carefully at the figure of Dr. Chase before sighing and closing his eyes again.

"Edward?"

"What?" Ed mumbled.

"Was it another dream?" Chase asked.

Ed opened his eyes and looked at Chase. "Yes."

"Was it a bad one?"

Ed nodded.

"About your brother?"

Ed paused for a moment before answering. "Yes."

"Is it something you want to talk about?"

Ed was quiet for a long time before answering. "No."

"You sure?"

Ed nodded. Chase pulled up a stool and sat down next to him. "We're here to help, Edward. You can talk to me if you need to."

"Do you have a brother?" Ed asked.

Chase blinked. "No, I'm an only child."

Ed turned so that he was lying on his left side, his back to Chase. "There's no way you'd ever understand."

"Understand what?"

Ed clenched his fists. "It's nothing."

"It's bad enough to cause you to have chronic nightmares and insomnia. It can't be nothing."

Ed was quiet. After a while, Chase gave up and left the room. Ed rolled sat up and watched as the doctor walked down the hallway, but he stopped when he noticed someone at the door. Ed kept his eyes on the man as he opened the door and stepped into the room.

"Who are you?" Ed asked with some suspicion. From the man's outfit, it didn't seem like he was a doctor. Then again, House didn't wear a lab coat, but… that was House…

"You must be the Fullmetal Alchemist," the man said, ignoring Ed's question at first. "My name is Edward Vogler. I'm on the board of this hospital." Vogler stuck his hand out to Ed. "I've heard a lot about you and I wanted to meet you in person."

_Vogler? Didn't House say something about him the other day…?_ Ed quietly took the hand and muttered, "Come to visit a sick dog, huh?"

"What was that?" Vogler asked with a confused frown.

"That's all state alchemists are, you know," Ed continued. "We give up our self-respect and sell ourselves to the military for a few privileges we can't get anywhere else."

Vogler stared at Ed for a moment before clearing his throat. "Eh… anyway, it's quite an honor to have such a high-ranking officer choose this hospital instead of one of the military hospitals in East City."

Ed folded his arms and leaned back on his bed (which had magically gone from flat to being at an angle! gaspage). "It's not like I had much of a choice."

Vogler looked down at Ed's right arm, which was reflecting some of the light from the hallway. "I thought you'd be used to hospitals by now."

Ed narrowed his eyes. "What are you trying to say?" he asked.

Vogler blinked and unconsciously took a step back. "Oh, sorry, it was insensitive of me to bring it up…"

Now it was Ed's turn to blink. _I figured he was implying that I get into too many fights, but it's about… Oh well, it's not like I'm going to tell _him_ that…_ "Forget it. It's just an arm, anyway."

Vogler raised an eyebrow. "_Just_ an arm?"

Ed glared at Vogler. "That's what I said. Now why are you _really_ here?"

Vogler looked at Ed for a second before pulling up a stool and sitting down. "Actually, I wanted to ask about something."

"What is it?"

"You're under Dr. House's care at the moment, correct?"

Ed nodded. "Why?"

"How… is he? As a doctor?"

Ed stared at the wall opposite him. "He's a jerk. He acts as if I don't know anything."

"How does he treat you?"

Ed blinked. "Fine, I guess. He's… kind of like my teacher."

"Your teacher?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah, our old alchemy teacher. She left us to fend for ourselves for a month on an uninhabited island, and her way of teaching was… different, but we learned more with her than we ever could have on our own."

"And you're… learning from House?"

"No. What I mean is, he doesn't follow the standards that everyone is used to, but it works out better that way." Ed looked at Vogler. "Why do you ask?"

At that moment, a soldier came into the room, but paused when she saw Vogler sitting next to Ed. "Ah, excuse me for interrupting…"

"First Lieutenant!" Ed exclaimed, letting his relief sound in his voice. "What are you doing here?"

Vogler looked from Ed to Hawkeye before turning back to Ed. "Is she a friend of yours?"

Ed nodded. Vogler stood up and walked toward the door. "Don't worry, ma'am, you weren't interrupting at all. In fact, I was just about to leave."

Riza turned to look at Vogler before walking up to Ed and sitting down next to him. "Who was that?"

Ed shrugged. "Some guy who said he's on the board for the hospital. What are you doing here?" Ed asked again.

"I'm on duty outside. You heard about the threats to this place, right?"

Ed nodded. "Is it really bad?"

"Not at the moment, but the Colonel thinks it's possible for things to get worse. Anyway, how are you doing? You don't look so good."

Ed frowned. This wasn't his idea of an ideal conversation, but he couldn't just ignore Riza or be rude to her. She had _powers._ "I'm… okay, I guess," Ed replied, turning to look at the wall again. It really was an interesting wall…

"I heard you're being put on a special diet to keep you from losing any more weight."

Ed nodded.

"It's good that we got you in here when we did. Alphonse has been very worried about you."

Ed cringed noticeably, but recovered quickly, hoping that Riza hadn't seen his movements. "W-what's Al been doing lately? I've only seen him a couple times…"

"We've given him access to the library in East City. He's doing research at the moment, but he doesn't seem to have found much."

_Of course he hasn't found much, he's probably too concerned with finding some way to get me out of here so he doesn't have to do all of this himself… And besides, I'm the one who should be spending all my time in the library… I'm the one who needs to get his body back for him…_

"Edward?"

Ed snapped out of his reverie and looked at Riza. "Hmm?"

"I have to go now. I'll stop by some other time, okay?"

Ed nodded. "Okay."

Riza smiled as she stood up. "You're going to be fine. Everybody's waiting for you to get better, so don't make us wait too long, okay?"

Ed gave a nervous smile. "I won't."

----------------

Ugh, I have no excuse for the delay except for laziness. Heh…

Anyway, the only reason this one's short is because I'm trying to keep it in pace with the other place I've put this story… So yeah. It's me being lazy. XD;


	6. Chapter 6

_Bonk._

"This kid…"

_Bonk._

"I don't get it…"

_Bonk._

"Why would he just now be having problems?"

_Bonk. Thud._

"Ow!"

House picked himself up off the ground and put his chair back in place before going back to what he was doing, but was soon interrupted by Chase entering the room. The younger doctor walked up to House and dropped a paper on his desk. "He had another dream. I tried asking about it but he didn't go into detail."

House picked up the paper and looked at it with vague interest before turning back to Chase. "Maybe he just doesn't like you. I wouldn't."

Chase chose to ignore this comment as he went on. "Cameron talked to his friend before she left for her hometown. She said Edward's biggest fear is that his brother blames him for what happened to him, and that's why he's been pushing himself so hard for the past four years."

"And…?"

"I think the dreams are because of that."

"But then why wouldn't he have had them much before this?"

"I don't know, I was just giving ideas."

_Bonk._

"Do you really need to be doing that right now?" Chase asked irritably.

_Bonk._

"Yep."

_Bonk._

Chase sighed and went over to the other part of the room so that he wouldn't have to listen to House mocking him. House turned back to what he was doing.

_Bonk._

"Well, at least that guy's going to be here in a few days…" House muttered to himself.

_Bonk!_

"Ow!" House rubbed at the injured section of his forehead for a while before suddenly stopping. He looked at his hand for a moment before touching his forehead again. All of a sudden, House got up and walked over to the table where all three of his henchmen were sitting. They all looked up at him as he entered the room.

"What's the deal with that gash on his forehead?" House asked.

"He… got it in a fight. He doesn't remember exactly how it happened," Cameron replied.

House pondered it for a moment. "Did anyone check for neurological damage?"

"He was sent to a hospital after it happened. They checked for a concussion, but he didn't show any signs…"

"But how thoroughly can they check something like that?"

Cameron hesitated. "Not very well…"

"Then that's what we should do. If he got hit in the head and something went where it isn't supposed to go, then there's a good chance we've got a cause for his insomnia." House stood up. "Do an MRI and… um… actually, do something that doesn't involve a giant magnet. I don't want that girl breaking my skull because we damaged her precious automail."

----------------

Ed stared at the ceiling as Roy sat next to him, glancing nervously at everything attached to Ed's left arm. The Colonel sat quietly next to Ed for several minutes without speaking before finally saying something.

"Your automail looks good."

Ed grunted in response.

"How are you feeling?" Roy asked.

Ed grunted again. He wasn't in the mood to say anything.

"Fullmetal, I would appreciate it if you could give me a real answer."

Ed glared at Roy. "How do you think I feel? I barely have the energy to do anything anymore, but I still can't sleep for more than an hour or two at a time because of stupid dreams."

Roy smirked. "Do I ever show up?"

"No, you're too boring."

"Is that so?" Roy paused for a minute before getting up and walking out of the room, giving Ed a brief farewell. "I'll see you later, Fullmetal. Don't worry about what's going on outside, either. You won't do much good in the state you're in, so just focus on yourself."

------------------

House popped some Vicodin into his mouth as Roy came out of Ed's room. He stuck the bottle in his pocket and gestured to Roy that he wanted to walk. As they walked down the hall, Roy gave him a questioning look.

"What's going on?" Roy finally asked as they rounded a corner.

"Not much, I just didn't want to talk about what's happening in front of the patient."

"And?"

House stopped walking and turned to face Roy. "He's responding well to the new treatment. He's not losing as much weight as before, but he won't be gaining any until we actually solve the problem. I've called in an expert who should be able to do just that, but it's not an… official kind of treatment, so, um, yeah."

"What kind of treatment is it?" Roy asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"It has to do with a certain incident about four years ago…"

"You mean the failed attempt at human transmutation."

"Yes. That." House continued walking. "I didn't realize you knew about that."

"I met them soon after they tried it," Roy replied. "There was still blood in the room where it happened."

"That's nice. Anyway, I don't know what you know about human transmutation, but Edward's weight loss is most likely due to some delayed complication from that. If I'm right, this guy can reverse that process."

"And if you're wrong?"

House sighed. "Then I don't know what's wrong with him, and until we do know, he'd have to stay under special care so that he doesn't starve to death. The only problem is, nothing fits. We've tested for just about everything that can cause weight loss, and he doesn't have any of it. Worst case scenario, his metabolism isn't working correctly, and he's never going to be the way he used to be."

"What are the odds of you being wrong?"

"Well, since I know virtually nothing about alchemy, and have only come up with this theory because of some guy who came in here a few years ago who did human transmutation… pretty good." House popped some Vicodin in his mouth. "But don't worry. He'll still be a useful little pet to the military. Just don't throw any more sticks for him at the park."

---------------

As House and Roy were talking, Chase and Foreman came in to pick Ed up for his CT Scan. Ed still didn't have much of a clue about what he was in for, but he figured it couldn't be too bad, otherwise the doctors would have given him more of a warning. Ed waited as Chase began disconnecting the tubes.

"You ready, Edward?" Chase asked. Ed gave a slight nod. "Okay, then let's get you down there."

Ed glared at the wheelchair they had brought into the room. "I can still walk, you know…"

Foreman raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? Let's see it."

Ed glared at him before taking a few steps – and immediately falling on his face. He thought he heard someone laughing as Foreman helped him up.

"Nice try, but I don't think you'll make it on your own."

Ed unwillingly sat in the wheelchair as it was pushed down the hallway. He folded his arms and bit his lip, trying not to say something nasty to the people who were keeping him alive.

As they arrived in the room, Ed eyed the large machine with suspicion. "And… what's this for, again?"

"We're going to take a look at your brain, to see if your head injury did any damage to your brain. If it did, then that could explain why you've been having chronic nightmares and insomnia," Chase said as he helped Ed onto the bed thingy that goes to the machine thingy. If you know medical stuff you should know what I'm talking about. "Okay, you're all set, so just relax. This shouldn't take too long, okay?"

"Yeah…" Ed stared at the ceiling as he waited for the scan to be finished. After a while, he closed his eyes. He was fairly tired. _I guess all the insanity of the past few weeks is catching up with me…_

All of a sudden, Ed had an unwelcome vision enter his head.

----------------

"So far, so good," Foreman said as he watched the computer. "At least he isn't making this difficult."

"He's in the military," Chase replied. "He's used to following orders."

"That's not how he's been acting," Foreman commented. "And… we're done."

"Great." Chase turned to get Ed, just as there was a thud followed by a cry of pain. The two doctors hurried over to Ed's side as the alchemist sat up, rubbing his head.

----------------

"Exactly how does one manage to hit their head in the middle of a CT Scan?" House asked nobody in particular.

"He said he got distracted and forgot where he was," Foreman replied. "He seemed pretty embarrassed."

"But why would he get distracted right then? It's not like there was anything else in the room," Chase interjected.

"Maybe it's got something to do with what he's been dreaming about," Foreman speculated. "It seems to be a pretty big deal for him."

"Of course it's a big deal for him," House snapped. "He had to spend a year in extensive surgery and rehabilitation just so that he could do the things he used to be able to do. And even automail has its limitations."

Cameron raised an eyebrow at House. "Are you maybe feeling bad for this kid?"

"Of course not. I'm just trying to show these two why they're being idiots." House sighed. "Anyone who gets automail installed is stronger than the average person, because that's three years of pain right there. Or, in our patient's case, one year of extreme pain and coughing up blood. You can't just think they're normal people, because even though they may act like it, they aren't. They've been changed." And with that, House got up and left the room.

"Wow," Chase said after a moment. "I don't think I've ever heard House stick up for a patient like that before."

"He does have a point, though," Cameron said. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like Edward before."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Have you met anyone with automail and a height complex before?"

Cameron glared at Chase before getting up and leaving the room as well. She walked down the hallway and stopped at the door to Ed's room. House was sitting inside, watching Ed, who was sleeping quietly. Cameron entered the room and walked up to the bed.

"Any particular reason you left so suddenly?" Cameron asked.

"Nope."

Cameron glanced at Ed. "About the weight loss thing-"

"Still not going to tell you," House interrupted before looking at Ed again. "You know, I like this kid."

"Why? Because he'd rather deal with pain than lose mobility?"

"That and he's fun to mess with. I think I'm going to have them give him an extra serving of milk today."

Cameron shook her head. "Wow, you're _real_ nice."

"You know why else I like him?" House asked.

"No. Why?"

"Because he doesn't let people decide his fate for him without a fight."

Cameron looked at Ed once again. "So, since there was no signs of damage on the scans, what's your theory now?"

"Don't have one. Any ideas?"

Cameron shrugged. "It might be that the insomnia's connected with his other symptoms."

"That's what I thought you'd say, and sadly enough, that was my theory."

"It could be food poisoning. He did mention that he tried to avoid eating food from the town because it was so nasty."

"It wouldn't be affecting him so long after his little adventure."

"What about some other kind of poisoning?"

"It's probably an infection from something he got whacked with. Test for the obvious ones and any not-so-obvious one you can think of."

"Right now?"

"Yeah, why not? He's tough. Even if he wakes up in the middle of it, he'll be fine."

Cameron rolled her eyes and pulled the blanket off of Ed's chest. "I wouldn't be surprised if he did wake up."

"Then you'll be prepared for when it happens. Have fun."

---------------

House went downstairs after leaving Ed's room and asked for something at the front desk. As he was getting something, he saw some military people enter the hospital. One of them went to the front desk and asked to see Edward Elric. House decided within seconds that he didn't like this man. As the lady at the front desk was replying to the man, she pointed out House.

"That's Dr. House," she said. "He's the diagnostician in charge of the case. You can ask him any questions you have."

House sighed as he stood up and limped over to the man. The man automatically held out a hand. "General Hakuro. I have some business to attend to concerning the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Well, he's still alive, so feel free to go up, but he's probably still asleep."

Hakuro narrowed his eyes. "I need to speak with him."

"He's averaging five hours of sleep a day. You wake him up, you compromise his health."

The General frowned. "Then I'll just have to see if he's awake. If he's not, then I'll just come back later."

"You aren't going to wait for him to wake up?"

"I'm a General. I have more important things to do than sit around and wait."

House watched as Hakuro walked off in the direction of the elevator before turning to the receptionist. "Mind if I use the phone?"

"Sure, go right ahead," she replied. "What for?"

"To warn someone about an approaching storm."

-----------------

Ed did wake up in the middle of the testing process. He started as he felt a needle go into his arm, which in turn startled Cameron, who nearly dropped everything in her hands.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, but we're testing to see if you have an infection, and Dr. House didn't want to waste any time."

"Makes sense," Ed said as he sat up, thinking, _He probably knew I'd wake up._

Cameron heard the phone ring and took a minute to put things down before answering it. "Yeah? Yeah. Okay, I'll tell him." Cameron hung up the phone. "That was Dr. House. He says General Hakuro is coming up for a visit, and he thought you'd appreciate a warning."

Ed groaned. "I don't want to talk to _him_."

Cameron finished doing what she needed for the tests and began putting stuff away. "Then don't talk to him. If it's stressful for you, I can always say you're sleeping."

"He'd come in anyway."

"Then act like you're asleep. House probably mentioned that you were suffering from insomnia, so…"

Ed lay down and looked at the door. "It probably won't work."

"Might as well try, though, right?" Cameron replied.

Ed rolled over onto his right side and watched for the General. "Guess so…"

"I have to go now. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure…" Ed closed his eyes as he saw Hakuro walking up to the room. Cameron looked at Ed one last time before leaving the room, only to run into the General.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Cameron said as politely as she could. "Are you here to visit Edward?"

"That's right."

"Go right on in. He's asleep right now, though, so you won't be able to talk to him for a while."

Hakuro raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Cameron nodded. "It's a relief, actually. He's been sleeping so little that it's beginning to affect the way he acts."

"I see." Hakuro flashed Cameron a friendly smile. "Well, if he's asleep, then I won't disturb him. I'll just come back later."

"Okay."

"How is he doing other than that?"

"Well, we've managed to prevent him from losing too much weight, and he's no longer having troubles with allergies, so he's doing fairly well."

"Good, good… I'll be back tomorrow."

"Of course."

As Hakuro left, Cameron breathed a sigh of relief, and she knew Ed would do the same thing when she told him. She went into the room and poked him. Ed didn't respond.

"Ed, you can stop faking it now, he left."

Ed still didn't respond.

"Ed? Hey, are-" Cameron cut her sentence short and quickly checked a few things. When it turned out he was just asleep, she breathed a sigh of relief. _I guess it's a good thing I told him to fake it,_ she thought as she went to do the tests.

-----------

This chapter brought to you by Pimp My Face, the newest reality show about shallow people getting makeovers because they're so insecure about how they look. Pimp My Face is brought to you by God. Mmm-mmm, bitch.


	7. Chapter 7

OMG THIS CHAPTER HAS FOOTNOTES!

-------------

Foreman carefully checked everything again as Ed waited. After a minute or so, Foreman got the scale to balance out and wrote down Ed's latest weight. When he compared it to previous measurements, Foreman smiled.

"Well, it's the exact same as last time. Now all we need to do is keep it like this until Dr. House brings in the expert he mentioned, and then you should be good to go as far as your weight is concerned."

Ed got off the scale and went back to his bed, with Foreman's help. "What about everything else?"

"We're waiting for the test results, but they should show us what's wrong. Once we know what it is, we can begin treating it, and you can go home."

"Great…"

Foreman raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound too happy about that."

Ed sighed as he lay down. "I have a pretty good feeling that I'm going to be blackmailed into doing someone else's paperwork for a week after I get out of here."

"Really? Who would do that?"

Ed looked at the window on the other end of his room. "That stupid useless Colonel. He's been hinting at it since I got here."

"Useless? He doesn't seem that useless from what I've heard of him."

"Well, clearly you've never had to fight alongside him in the middle of a rainstorm. He doesn't know _anything_ about unarmed combat."

"How much do you know?"

Ed shrugged. "Enough to survive."

"Do you get in a lot of fights?"

"Not on purpose. I just did a lot of training when I was younger."

"For the military?"

Ed shook his head. "No, before all that, when me and Al were trying to get better at alchemy. Our teacher would say that 'to train the mind, you must first train the body,' so Al and I would spar."

"Do you still do that?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah, when we have time."

"That's good. You're in better shape than most of the teenagers I've taken care of." At that moment, Al came into the room, and Foreman decided to let the brothers have some time to themselves. "I'll be back later, okay?"

Ed nodded as Foreman left before he turned to talk to Al. Foreman began filling out some papers nearby, occasionally looking up to see how Ed was doing. After a while, he saw Al walk out of the room without a word. He went into the room and saw Ed sitting on the bed, his legs crossed and his hands curled into fists. Or at least, his right hand was. He was staring at his right hand, and didn't look up when Foreman came and stood next to him.

"Ed? You okay?" Foreman asked.

"I'm fine."

"Did you two have a fight or something?"

Ed's eyes narrowed, and he looked like he was about to cry. "Something like that."

"What happened?"

Ed shook his head. "I said something stupid. Al got pissed and left."

"What exactly did you say to him?"

"I… I don't know…"

Foreman sighed and sat at the foot of Ed's bed. "Ed, don't worry about it. You haven't been your normal self lately. If you explain that to Al, he should be understanding, right?"

"No, not after what I did to him… He has every right to be mad…"

Foreman frowned as he realized that Ed wouldn't change his mind so easily, and stood up. "Maybe he does, but that's just another reason for you to talk to him. For now, though, why don't you just try to get some sleep?"

Ed nodded again and lay down. "Okay."

As soon as Foreman was sure Ed was asleep, he left the room, making sure to shut the door quietly on his way out.

------------

Vogler was skipping merrily down the hallway (hey, I needed _something_ funneh after the last section's angst fest) when he saw General Hakuro come out of Ed's room. Being the convenient plot device that he is, Vogler decided to go talk to Hakuro and introduced himself to the General. They walked down the hallway together for a while.

"To be honest, I'm not sure how much I want Fullmetal to stay here. It doesn't seem to be helping him at all."

"Doctor House is doing everything he can…"

"I don't like him. He's crude and obnoxious. Besides, if Fullmetal is really suffering from insomnia, then why is he asleep every time I try to talk to him?"

Vogler sighed. "House is… a problem. I've been trying to get rid of him, but as of yet, I haven't managed it."

"I'm thinking of having Fullmetal transferred to a different hospital; a military hospital, where I can be sure he doesn't try to avoid me all the time."

"It might kill him."

"I don't care. He may be important, but we can find replacements if need be. Besides, it's only temporary; as soon as Colonel Mustang leaves for Central to attend an important meeting with the Fuhrer, I will have him transferred again, without Mustang knowing."

"You're doing this because of Mustang?"

"He's becoming a rather big problem within the military. I'm sure you know the type, Mr. Vogler. The kind that allows his subordinates to run wild and waste their research funds on unnecessary things. The Fullmetal Alchemist needs to be controlled, and this is the only way I can think of to gain control over him."

Vogler nodded. "I can understand that perfectly. I'll work something out."

And with that, the plothole monster nodded his head, satisfied that the two baddies were doing what the plot required of them, even if the way they got to that point doesn't make as much sense as it could.

-----------------

_Bonk._

"I really should go talk to his brother…" House muttered to himself.

_Bonk._

A door opened.

_Bonk._

House stopped what he was doing as Wilson came into the office and sat down. House folded his hands on his desk and tilted his head. "Why are you here?"

"I just got done talking to Cuddy. Looks like your patient's going to be transferred in two days."

"Why?"

"Because Vogler doesn't like you and evidently he's a little eager to please the military."

House leaned back in his chair. "I thought we were pleasing the military by _not_ letting this kid die."

"That's what I figured, but I guess General Hakuro wants him out of here. He doesn't seem to think you know what you're doing."

"I wonder if this has anything to do with the terrorist thing…"

Wilson was about to respond when he suddenly stopped. He paced around for a minute before realizing something. "You know, I bet that's it. Other than the people at East City, the military doesn't seem to care what happens to this place. I get the feeling this is going to turn into a power struggle between Hakuro and Mustang."

"Probably. And that poor little sleep-deprived, starving alchemist boy got stuck in the middle."

"Along with the rest of this hospital. You do realize that no important military figure means no protection from the terrorists, don't you?"

"Yep, which is why I'm glad the guy I called out is arriving tomorrow."

Just then, the phone rang. House answered it after three rings in a bored tone. Wilson sat and waited for House to stop talking. When House hung up, he sighed.

"Speak of the devil…"

"That the one who's supposed to come in today?"

"Yeah, and his train ride got delayed due to a terrorist attack, so his entire schedule has been shifted, so he won't be here until the day after tomorrow. At about eleven PM."

"What, Edward will have been transferred by then."

"I know, so I'm going to have to talk to Colonel Mustang tomorrow."

"You can't do that today?" Wilson asked.

"Nope. I have someone else I need to talk to today."

--------------

Al started as he heard the knock on the hotel room door. He quickly straightened things out and made sure everything looked normal before opening the door. Whether he was relieved or not to see House standing in the hallway was hard to say.

"Um, is something wrong?" Al asked nervously as he tentatively let House into the room.

"No, nothing you shouldn't already know about. I just wanted to chat."

"About what?"

"How about why you're avoiding your brother and making him feel like you're angry at him? That might be a good place to start."

If Al could have narrowed his eyes in confusion, he would have. "What do you mean?"

"Let's see, so far, you've left his room three times with no explanation, only to have someone else go in later and see him either crying or about to cry. He's also said something about you hating him, but who knows? Maybe this is just one big joke that none of us get."

Al was quiet for a while. "Is… that really what's going on?"

"Yep."

Al sat quietly on the bed for a while, not knowing what to say. "It's nothing like that," he finally said. "I just-"

"Meow!"

House raised an eyebrow at Al. "I wasn't aware that you two had a pet cat."

That threw Al off guard. "I-I found it in an alley the other day, and it looked so sad…"

"You've been avoiding your brother because of a cat."

"I'm sorry…"

Just then, the cat snuck out of its hiding place and jumped up on House's lap, pulling the "OMG me so cute" face. House grabbed the kitty and looked at it from all angles before setting it down and petting it. "Pretty cute cat, though. I gotta say, I think I'd rather hang out with this little guy instead of sitting around in some hospital and visiting some obnoxious little kid all the time."

Al didn't say anything. He figured he deserved to be lectured. If Ed really had felt like that… "What can I do, though? I can't just put it back where I found it."

"Hmm, actually, I know someone who's been wanting to get a cat for a while. I'll ask him for ya."

"Really?" Al brightened up a bit. "Thank you!"

"Yeah, whatever." House stood up, cat in hand. "Anyway, just… visit him more from now on. Who knows, it might help or something." House stopped before he got to the door. "Oh, and… your armor's empty, right? Mind if I take a look?"

Al stared at House in confusion for a moment before taking off his head. House looked inside for a moment and pointed at the blood seal. "That from your brother?"

Al nodded. "That's what connects my soul."

"Fascinating." House held the cat at eye level and looked into its eyes. "It's just so exciting, isn't it, Fido?"

"Fido?" Al asked.

"I'm bad with cat names, so I went with the ever-popular dog name instead."

House left the hotel with a certain feeling of pride. As he arrived at the hospital, he went to Ed's room to shove this fuzzy new development in Ed's face, only to see Foreman and Chase standing by the bed, looking as they were very busy.

"What's going on?" House asked as he walked up to the two, placing the cat on the floor. It immediately scrambled under the bed.

"He's dreaming again," Chase replied, pointing to Ed, who was beginning to move around in his sleep. "At this rate, he might end up hurting himself."

---------------

"_Edward… why? Why have you done this to me? Please, I don't want to be this way, save me, Edward…"_

_Ed stared at what he had created. The thing, that he made with his own two hands. It seemed to be staring at him. Ed tried to back away, but black arms were holding him in place. He struggled to get away._

"Hold him still! Foreman, get a sedative! Now!"

"Here!"

Ed felt several hands pushing him down as his eyes snapped open. He stopped moving as he realized where he was, breathing heavily. Everyone was watching him.

"Ed. You okay?" Foreman asked, his voice filled with genuine concern.

Ed nodded, still trying to catch his breath. "What… what happened?"

"You were freaking out," Chase replied. "Were you having another nightmare?"

Ed looked around, having finally gotten his breathing under control. "Yes."

"Oh, see? He's fine. Problem solved." House looked at a syringe in his hand. "Aw, and I really wanted to use this." House tossed the syringe to Foreman, who caught and put it away. The two doctors under House left the room seconds later, leaving Ed alone with House.

"So, how about you tell me a story? My life hasn't been too interesting lately."

"It's none of your business," Ed snapped, just before he felt something go into his arm. He looked over to see House replacing a tube that had been accidentally pulled out of Ed's arm a few minutes earlier.

"Aw, come on. Pwease?" House asked, giving Ed a puppy face.

Ed shook his head. "No."

"So you want to go with the alternative? I thought it was bad enough to make you even prefer to drink milk."

"Go right ahead," Ed replied. "I don't care anymore."

"Ooh, goody. I was hoping you'd say that," House said as he pulled on some gloves. "Although, I'll be sad that I can't hear you talking about all the little black hands grabbing you. I gotta say, if I had dozens of hands grabbing me, I would be in paradise."

Ed raised an eyebrow. "What are you getting-" Ed stopped in the middle of his sentence. "How would you know about that?"

"Yep, I know all about _that_, pipsqueak." House easily blocked Ed's punch and quickly strapped Ed's wrist to the bed. Ed fumed, but he decided to listen to House as the doctor continued. "We got a patient in here a few years ago who was missing a small part of his brain, along with what he referred to as his baby-making tools. He was pretty crazy at that point in time, and he kept talking about doors, and some weird shadow guy who stole parts of his body. It was kind of funny to hear him shouting 'he stole my babies!' over and over again."

Ed looked at House like he was crazy. "So, then why would you want to know about that if you already do know?"

House rolled his eyes. "Because I want to hear it again. That story totally turns me on."

Ed nearly pulled his arm out of the restraint before remembering that his other hand was free, but by that point in time, he was too late. House pulled the needle out of Ed's arm and placed the now-empty syringe on the counter. "Whoa, there. You made me break out the sedatives again. I was just kidding, so you can stop trying to kill me now."

"Then why did you say that?" Ed yelled, frowning when he realized his voice wasn't as strong as he'd hoped it would have been.

"To make sure I'm right in my thinking. No matter how much you say it isn't a big deal, it's big enough to give you chronic nightmares, and that's something that, believe it or not, we're trying to get _rid_ of."

"And you think that me talking about it is going to help?"

"Uh, no. Yes. I don't know."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm not going to tell you about it."

"Okay. Just go back to sleep then."

Ed was about to respond when House drugged him again. Ed glared at House as he slumped back in the bed. "You're annoying."

"So are you. And guess what? I'm the one in charge here!"

Ed closed his eyes and did his best to ignore House, which didn't work very well. House took his cane and began poking Ed in the face. "It isn't sleepy time yet. Story time comes first."

Ed finally realized how he could get rid of the restraint, clapped his hands, and put one hand on House's cane. House stared at the newly transmuted design for a minute before glaring at Ed.

"Oh, nice. Is this what you do? Use alchemy to make things look scary? Wow, what a great service to your country."

Ed rolled his eyes before he felt the sedatives really beginning to work. He closed his eyes and tried very hard to ignore the random pokes from House's cane. He even transmuted it into something that wouldn't work for poking, but then House just went with something else. Ed gave up and closed his eyes again, ignoring the random meow coming from House's general direction. House couldn't keep poking him forever…

------------

House continued to poke Ed with the cat's paw until he realized that Ed was one stubborn idiot. After another poke or two, House set the cat on his lap and waited for a while. From Ed's movements, House could tell that the alchemist wasn't asleep, and all House had to do was to wait for Ed to be too tired to realize what exactly he was talking about.

When the time came, House forced himself to stay away from sarcasm for a while. "So," he began. "I guess you really care about your brother, huh?"

"Mm."

"Is that a yes?"

Ed nodded slightly. "He doesn't deserve to be like that."

House decided to play dumb for a moment. "Be like what?"

Ed opened his eyes and gave House a questioning look, somehow not noticing the cat in House's lap. "You haven't seen inside?"

"What, inside that armor? Nope."

Ed paused for a minute before whispering, "It's empty."

"Is it? Why's that?"

"It's just his soul in there. His body's gone. It got… Truth took it away."

_Now we're getting somewhere, _House thought. "Really? Who's Truth?"

"A shadow at the Doors. He gives you true knowledge and then takes away part of your body."

"Like your arm and leg?"

"No, just my leg. He took my arm when I tried bonding Al's soul."

"Uh-huh. How did you get to the Doors in the first place?" _This kid talks way too much when he's drugged and half awake_, House thought happily.

"I wanted my mom back…"

"Did you get her back?"

"No. Just a… thing. It was freaky."

"How bad was it?"

Ed closed his eyes and whimpered. "Really bad. I could see everything I shouldn't have been able to see…"

"Such as…?"

Ed pointed at his stomach. "In here. All this was on the outside. And it was still alive for a while…"

_Sounds pretty gruesome. No wonder he's having nightmares._ "Ouch. Sounds painful. Is that why you think your brother hates you?"

"It's because of me… I shouldn't have dragged him into it…"

House stood up. "Well, you have a lot to think about, but don't worry. I'll drug you again and hopefully it'll keep you from dreaming."

"You like drugging people, don't you…" Ed muttered as he closed his eyes.

"Yep. Especially when it makes them nice and talkative like you just were."

"You really are annoying…"

House was almost at the door when he remembered something and turned back to Ed. "Oh, by the way-"

But Ed was asleep. House sighed and limped out of the room, muttering, "I guess you don't want to hear about your brother's new pet."

-------------

House somehow managed to limp through the hospital to his office and dropped the ball that used to be his cane on the ground before sitting down and setting the cat on his desk. After a minute, he picked the ball up and looked more closely at it. It took him a moment to notice his team watching him from the other room.

"You know, you could just ignore the fact that I lost my cane and just came in with a ball and a cat and ask me what I found out," House remarked, spinning the ball in his hands.

"Okay…" Foreman replied, getting up and walking over to House's side of the office as Cameron and Chase followed. "What did you find out?"

"Well, for one, poor little Edward is all worked up over nothing. His brother's not mad at him, he's just raising a little furry bundle of joy and didn't realize how stupid he was being."

"Okay, and…?"

"Little Ed's nightmares are caused by the same thing that's causing his weight loss."

"What? How do you know that?"

"Well, now, let's see. There's the fact that he tried, and failed, to bring his mommy back to life, and then there's the fact that his brother is currently an empty suit of armor. Literally."

"What?" Chase asked. "That doesn't even-"

"Alchemy, pretty boy. Alchemy is different from what you grew up studying. It can do a lot of things. It can fix things that would otherwise be unfixable. It can change something important like a cane into something useless like a ball."

"He transmuted your cane?"

"Shut up. I'm not done."

Foreman shut his mouth and waited.

"It can also temporarily give life to an artificially created human being, but if you, say, get pulled into some weird alternate dimension where your leg gets stolen from you by some crazy shadow guy, then of course the human you make isn't going to look anything like a human. Well, it is, but it's like abstract art. Nothing is where you expect it to be."

"Okay, you're sounding insane," Foreman said.

"That's too bad. I'm just repeating what the patient told me. And what we learned two years ago when that other guy came in without certain parts of his body. Now, we could interview the patient's brother and everyone else in the country who's attempted human transmutation, but that would be hard to do, since it's something only a few people can do _and_ it's illegal."

It was Cameron's turn to speak. "So you're saying we should believe him?" she asked. "That's-"

"Like I said to pretty boy, alchemy. It explains how a fourteen-year-old boy can be both seven feet tall and have the voice of a ten-year-old, and it explains why said fourteen-year-old can easily walk around and talk in a gigantic suit of armor that has nothing inside."

"But what about the nightmares?" Foreman asked.

"Trauma."

"He hasn't shown any other signs of trauma, except for the times after his brother visited, and those were different kinds of trauma. Besides, how do we know for sure that it's really traumatic for him?"

"You'd be traumatized too if your mom was a bleeding, wheezing, dying… pile of organs." House said.

Foreman nodded his head. "Well, that explains some of it. But-"

"And had the only remaining member of your family taken away from you right before your eyes."

"Yeah, but-"

"_And_ had your arm and leg stolen by some freaky, shadowy thing."

"Okay, I get the point. But why would he have a three to four year gap with relatively few nightmares and just now have more symptoms?" Foreman asked.

"Probably because he's been distracting himself for the past few years. Right now, he's in the hospital, has a lot of time to think about what happened," Chase intervened.

"But that doesn't explain why he had these dreams the week _before_ he came in. Not to mention why he didn't have problems any other time he was stuck in the hospital for a while," House replied.

"When else has he had something like this happen?" Chase asked.

"Have you taken a look at his medical records? This kid must _love_ getting himself into trouble." House paused to let Chase have a chance to reply. "No? Okay, then, I'll tell you some of the better ones. Let's see, I'll start with this one. At the age of thirteen, he was admitted to the hospital due to the fact that he had been kidnapped and stabbed. He also had a burn on his forehead from the Flame Alchemist. That's bound to be an interesting story." (1) House looked up as he flipped to another page at random. "Oh, look at this. When he was fourteen, he was treated for a head wound in the shape of a wrench. I think we know who did that one. And then…" House flipped to another page. "Ooh, this one's my favorite. Got in a fight with a litter of angry kittens, and ended up in the hospital for several days with several infections. I'm guessing _that's_ why his brother was hiding his furry little friend." (2)

The cat meowed and shook its head before walking across the desk and rubbing its head against House's hand. House scratched underneath its chin as he waited for somebody to say something.

"So… the weight loss and insomnia are both connected to the transmutation?" Chase asked finally.

"Yep. And something in that village set it off. Which is why I'm having someone take a look at him, assuming our patient doesn't get transferred before then."

"Transferred?"

House nodded as he picked up the cat and held it in his arms. "Yep. I guess not everyone in the military likes us. Surprising, huh?"

--------------

(1) reference to Happy Birthday

(2) because everybody loves angry kittens. XD

As he arrived at the hospital, he went to Ed's room to shove this fuzzy new development in Ed's face, only to see Foreman and Chase standing by the bed, **looking as they were very busy.** – Don't you hate it when you see grammatical errors in your story and you have no idea what the heck you were trying to write? Yeah. I'm not going to even try to fix that one.

And apparently my internet hates me, so much thanks to my friend who uploaded this chapter for me. And that also means I might not be updating for a while.


	8. Chapter 8

Attention! I am holding this fic hostage! Meaning there will be no new chapters until AkitaFallow updates her fic! (Just ignore the fact that I haven't had the ability to work on this fic and probably wouldn't update until after that day comes anyway… heh…)

So yeah. Plz update, oh wonderful beta of mine? –puppy eyes–

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Ed woke up in the same fashion as he had the day before; panting and with a pressure on his chest that prevented him from moving. As he regained his breath, Ed looked over at House, who was sitting next to him, staring at something on Ed's chest. When Ed finally looked, he was surprised to see a cat sitting on his chest.

"What…"

House stroked the cat's head as he replied. "I have some good news and some bad news."

"What is it?"

"The good news is your brother isn't mad at you at all. The reason he was avoiding you is sitting on your chest."

Ed looked at the cat again before sighing. "I told him…"

"Yep, it's hard to have a pet when you travel so much. I guess that's why he was keeping it hidden."

Ed sighed and let his head fall back onto the pillow. "What's the bad news?" he asked, his eyes closed.

"You're being transferred to a different hospital. Under General Hakuro's orders."

Ed opened one eye and eyed House suspiciously. "Why?"

"Because apparently I'm not good enough anymore. They'd rather have you completely under military control, even though you wouldn't last two weeks over there."

Ed frowned. "That's stupid."

"Yep, but that's life. It's been nice knowing you, kid. No, wait, forget that last line. But it'll still be sad to see you die. Especially since it'll make me look bad."

Ed glared at House, but didn't say anything. In fact, he didn't know what to say. The fact that the military was about to let him die was… he didn't like it. It didn't make any sense to him.

"So I'm hoping the guy I called over will by some miracle arrive early so that we can prove to the military that I actually know what I'm doing and that there isn't really a point in having you transferred elsewhere," House said as he picked up the cat and began petting it.

Ed raised an eyebrow. "It's not that simple, you know."

"Hey, can you ignore that fact and try and appreciate the fact that I was trying to give you at least one small fraction of hope?"

"No."

House shoved the cat into Ed's face. "Hey, I'm being nice enough to find a home for this poor kitty and I even got your brother to swear he'd stop avoiding you. You could at least pretend to be grateful." When Ed didn't say anything, House placed the cat back in Ed's lap. "No? Nothing at all? Not even a 'gee, that was nice of you'? I'm hurt. And now it's time for me to leave and talk to that handsome Colonel who's waiting just outside with your brother."

Ed watched in a daze as House left with the cat, leaving the door open so that Al could come into the room. Al quietly closed the door and sat next to Ed without saying anything.

"Hey, Al," Ed said quietly.

"Hi."

It was quiet for a while before Al spoke again. "Um, I'm sorry about… sorry."

Ed smiled. "I should have realized you were getting all worked up because of a cat."

"Sorry. It's just that… it looked so cold and sad…"

"You could have taken it to a shelter or something."

"But…"

"Al, don't worry about it now. He's going to have a good home now." Ed rolled onto his side so that he was facing his brother. He was feeling nauseous again.

"Yeah… Brother, are you okay?" Al's voice was full of concern.

"I'm feeling nauseous again…" Ed muttered, just as Cameron came in with a nurse, who placed a tray of food on a table and left. Cameron figured out what was going on pretty quickly. She grabbed something from a drawer and began checking a few things.

"How bad is it?" she asked gently.

"Pretty bad," Ed replied quietly. Al watched nervously from his nearby seat. "I feel like…" Ed stopped speaking. He didn't trust himself to speak at the moment.

"Do you feel like you're going to-"

Ed's next actions gave Cameron an affirmative answer, and Ed soon became unaware of his surroundings, except for a slightly panicked voice that he knew belonged to his brother. After a minute, Cameron got him to roll over onto his back, and he soon fell asleep.

---------------

Roy watched as House came out of Ed's room with a cat in his free hand, and was about to comment when House waved a hand to dismiss any comments about it. "We need to talk," the doctor said.

Roy nodded. "What's going on?"

"Well, I heard from Dr. Wilson, who heard from one of his fellow cancer doctor buddies, who heard from anonymous nurse b, who heard from anonymous nurse a, who heard from Dr. Cuddy, who heard from Vogler that your little pet is going to be transferred to a state hospital tomorrow."

Roy frowned. "Why?"

"Beats me. Some General wanted it to be done, so that's why it's going to happen."

"But then…"

"Yep, your little pet in there will last one, maybe two weeks tops."

Roy frowned. He didn't understand why this was happening, but he had a feeling that there was more to it than just Hakuro's disdain for him. He had to think of some way to prevent this, but he was leaving tomorrow to have some sort of meeting with the Fuhrer…

House waited for Roy to say something for a while before looking over at the room again, and Roy followed his gaze. Cameron was currently dealing with a very gross situation. "Well, the good news about that is that if this continues, he won't be stable enough for a transfer, and everything will work out just fine."

Roy shook his head at House's attitude. While he did have a very good point, the way he had said it was just too… cheerful. It bothered him.

"Well, I should probably get back to work now," House remarked. "Have fun dealing with the legal side of things."

-------------

The next day came sooner than anyone thought it would, and House received a surprise when someone came into his office, panting slightly and wearing clothes that definitely showed that he had been traveling for a while.

"I managed to catch an earlier train, so I got here earlier than I said I would," the man said. "Sorry for the delay."

House blinked before he realized who he was talking to. "Oh, no, it's fine. Actually, this is perfect timing. The patient was just about to be transferred, but since you're here, we can get rid of whatever alchemy weird thing is affecting him and maybe he won't die when he gets stuck in a less advanced hospital."

The man raised an eyebrow, but didn't question House's statement. "All right then…"

"But first, we need a way to get you into the room without anyone knowing about it. For some reason I don't think trying to explain why you're here would be a very good idea."

The man nodded. "Of course."

Just then, House saw Al walking down the hallway and went to the door to get the armor's attention. Al stopped when he heard House calling his name and walked over to the office.

"What is it?" Al asked nervously.

"I need some help," House replied. "We need to get this guy into your brother's room without anybody knowing. Would you mind…" House trailed off, pointing to the man and then to Al with a hopeful look on his face.

"Ah… I guess…" Al replied. "But why do you need to sneak him in?"

"Because I have a plan. It's almost time for your brother to be transferred, and I don't want to bother trying to sneak this guy into a military hospital. It's also not technically something I should be doing, but this is the only way to help your brother." House's voice was surprisingly serious during his last sentence.

"Okay…"

They managed to get the man into Al's armor without too many difficulties, and House led Al down the hall to Ed's room, pausing outside the door when House saw that Ed had just vomited and was now passed out on his bed. "Perfect…" House muttered as he entered the room. Chase was replacing the IV line as a nurse cleaned up the mess.

Once the nurse was gone, House gestured for Chase to close the blinds for the room, preventing anyone from seeing what was going to happen in the room. Chase did so, and watched in surprise as the man crawled out from Al's armor and dusted himself off.

"Um…"

"This is what I mentioned earlier, pretty boy." House turned to Al, who had just replaced his chest piece. "How good are you at stalling people?"

Al would have looked incredulous if he could express emotions. "What…? Um… I'm fine, I guess…"

"Good. This might take a while, so if you don't mind, just… stay out there and stall anyone who tries to come in. Tell them there's some kind of emergency situation that we have to deal with, or something else like that."

"Um…"

"I don't know, just… don't let anyone in. This is important, and they're more likely to listen to you than to me. He's _your_ brother, after all."

Al nodded and went outside. Chase looked at House and the man in sheer confusion. "Ed's not getting transferred for another hour or two. Why-"

"I didn't want him in here asking questions," House interrupted before turning to the man. "Now then, what all do we need to do?"

"Not much, I had plenty of time to do a basic array on the way over, so all I need to do is make a larger version of it."

Chase looked very confused. "What is this guy doing?"

"Remember when I said that our patient's weight loss was being caused by some complication from that transmutation?" House asked as the man began drawing an array on the ground with chalk.

"Yeah…"

"Well, thanks to the fact that his younger brother's body has been taken to some faraway place where it can't get any nutrition on its own, he's been forced to rely on his brother for those things."

"Yeah, that explains weight loss, but…"

"The insomnia? That's harder to explain, but here's my brilliant theory: The two have to be connected somehow for all this to work, right? Well, whatever is connecting them is causing our patient to be much more susceptible to the thoughts of his little brother's body, but then, what about when our patient is asleep? He can't block out those thoughts when he isn't conscious."

The man finished drawing the array, and got Chase to help him move Ed to the floor. As soon as Ed was in position, the man placed his hands on the array and activated it, which caused the room to glow for a moment. House and Chase watched silently as the glow enveloped Ed, and eventually it faded away. Ed had shifted slightly during the process, but he was now sleeping peacefully. Once he was back on the bed, House called Al back inside, and the younger Elric hid the alchemist inside his armor and left after he was sure Ed would be all right.

"So, what exactly did that man do?" Chase asked.

"He shifted the connection back to the way it was before," House replied. "Now this kid's brother won't be doing so great, but he'll have a better chance of making it in the long run if his brother can continue traveling and doing what he has been doing. Besides, if this one dies, they both die."

Chase nodded. "So now what?"

"We just wait and hope that for some reason, they decide not to transfer him so that we can figure out what else is wrong with him. Oh, and this is a secret. Don't tell anyone."

"What about Edward?"

"He doesn't need to know. If I told him, he'd just get even more confused, and we can't have that, now can we?" House walked out of the room before Chase could get another word in, and headed straight for his office.

----------------

"You have got to be kidding me," Cuddy muttered after Vogler told her what he and Hakuro had planned. "You're risking the patient's life just to please some General? Why would you want to transfer him if you're just going to bring him back here?"

"That's what he wants," Vogler replied. "And if we want to keep on the military's good side, we should do what he wants, shouldn't we?"

"But if that kid goes, then so does any protection we had since he arrived."

"Do you really think this place is in danger? It's just some small terrorist group, it's not like they can do any damage."

"Do you ever read the newspapers from that country?" Cuddy snapped. "Every time I do, there's at least one article about some huge problem with some terrorist group that everyone thought was small enough to not do any real damage."

"If we ignore General Hakuro's requests, then that'll be the end of _any_ military support this hospital will ever get. We have to do it."

Just then, Roy Mustang knocked on the office door, and Cuddy let him in. "I didn't realize you were still here," she said politely. "Didn't you say you were going to Central to have a meeting with the Fuhrer?"

"He chose to come here instead, so that he could get his inspection of the Eastern headquarters over with," Roy responded curtly. "He has also requested that Fullmetal stays here." As he said this, Roy handed Cuddy a slip of paper, and she read it with a smile on her face before handing it to Vogler. Vogler read it, sighed, and shook his head.

"Well, if the Fuhrer himself wants him to stay here, then I guess there's no point in transferring him," Vogler muttered. "You should let Doctor House know," he said to Cuddy before leaving the room.

Cuddy looked at the paper again before looking back up to Roy. "You told the Fuhrer about all this?"

Roy shrugged nonchalantly. "I mentioned it, since he wanted to know how Fullmetal was doing. The Fuhrer doesn't want to lose someone as valuable as him."

Cuddy couldn't help smiling. "Well, it's nice to know that the people here will be safe for a while longer."

Roy smiled as well. "My subordinates are putting everything they have into keeping this hospital safe. They're good soldiers, and they shouldn't let you down."

"I hope not," Cuddy muttered. "But you seriously managed to get the Fuhrer to sign this? Just how important is that kid?"

"Important enough for the Fuhrer to come to his state alchemist exam in person," Roy replied. "That boy's talent easily surpasses my own, as well as that of any other state alchemist I've met."

Cuddy nodded. "If he can get in at the age of twelve…" Something about that fact bothered Cuddy, but she didn't know what. She simply thanked Roy again and watched as he made his way through the hospital and to Ed's room.

--------------

"It's been four hours already," Chase muttered.

"Actually, four and a half," Cameron replied as she adjusted Ed's pillow. "It's the longest he's slept since he came here."

"I guess House was right once again," Chase said before leaving the room. Cameron sat down to wait and see if Ed would wake up. An hour or so passed before she saw someone quietly open the door to the room. He was wearing a military uniform, and Cameron recognized his face from the Amestrian newspapers she'd read on occasion. Fuhrer King Bradley was currently standing in the Fullmetal Alchemist's hospital room.

"Are you here to visit Edward?" she asked politely.

Bradley nodded. "No, I'm much too busy for an actual visit. I simply came to see how he was doing."

"It's hard to say," Cameron replied. "Right now, we're hoping we got rid of the insomnia, because this is the longest he's ever slept since he was admitted, but his other symptoms are getting worse."

"Have you figured out what's causing them?"

"No, not yet, but we're working as hard as we can to find out so that we can treat him."

The Fuhrer looked at Ed again. "I've heard good things about this hospital. I'm glad that he is in such capable hands." Bradley took a step back before turning around and heading for the door. "And now I must get back to my duties. It was a pleasure speaking with you." And with that, he was gone, leaving Cameron in shock at what had just happened. She looked down at Ed again.

"Well, that was interesting…"

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I BLAME ANY AND ALL INCONSISTINCIES ON THE PLOTHOLE MONSTER! Grawr.


	9. Chapter 9

Yep. Update.

I love holding stories hostage. I have no idea if it actually worked, but since AkitaFallow finally got a new chapter up… Here you go.

----------------

House sat quietly in Ed's room, watching over him carefully to make sure that the "treatment" had been a success. Or at least, that's what he said to Cuddy when he had been trying to get out of clinic duties. He knew that it had worked when Ed hadn't woken up for seven hours. He was still asleep at the moment, and House was playing on his DS.

After a while, House looked over to see that Ed had his eyes open, and he was staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Hey, you're awake," House said, closing his DS for the time being. "Do you know how long you've been asleep?"

"No…" Ed mumbled. He rolled over onto his left side, facing House, and House poked him with his cane.

"So far it's been about eight hours. Which is a good thing, since you were getting to be a real pain in your sleep-deprived state." House was somewhat disappointed when he didn't see any change of emotion in Ed's face, so he decided to continue. "Not only that, but the treatment should have also taken care of the weight loss problem. Now all we need to do is figure out what else is wrong with you and get you back up to your normal weight."

Ed's eyes were halfway closed. "That's nice…" he mumbled into his pillow.

"You know, you _could_ thank me," House muttered.

"No way. You're a jerk," Ed replied before falling asleep again.

House watched Ed for another moment before going back to his game, just as Cuddy entered the room.

"Now that's an interesting way to observe a patient," she said.

"It's my new strategy. I call it 'have something to do when you're waiting for someone to wake up.'"

"Having fun with that?"

"Not really. He interrupted my game."

Cuddy raised an eyebrow. "So did he wake up?"

"For about a minute."

"Then whatever you did worked, I take it?"

House paused. He knew where this was going… "Well, it's hard to say…"

"Get down to the clinic. I'm sure we can let you know if something goes horribly wrong with your patient's health."

House sighed as he put away his DS and stood up. "Fine, but if he dies when I leave-"

"He's not going to _die_, unless you and your Gameboy are somehow _magically_ preventing his death and he's only alive because you're trying to avoid clinic duty."

"As a matter of fact, that's exactly what's happening, and it's not a Gameboy, it's a DS. There's a difference."

"Just get down there," Cuddy snapped.

"Okay, mom." House slowly made his way to the clinic and did his thing. His final torture was in exam room one, where two people were waiting, an older man and a man who was about twenty. The twenty-year-old eyed House nervously for a moment before going into a coughing fit.

"Okay, so I take it this is why you're here?" House asked.

The older man nodded. "He was helping me with a project, and then he just started coughing."

House sighed and gave the younger man a quick diagnosis and a prescription. He was about to leave the room when he realized something. He turned and looked at the older man.

"What's your name again?"

The man looked vaguely confused. "Hohenheim."

"Right… would you mind coming with me for a minute?"

Hoho followed House down the hallway and to the elevator, giving House questioning glances all the while. House was perfectly calm about everything as he opened the door to his patient's room.

"Recognize him?" House asked, pointing to Ed's sleeping form. Ed muttered something about Shuichi and rolled over onto his back. Hoho stared at his son for a good minute before House walked over and sat next to the bed.

"He's sick. We don't know what's wrong with him, but it might be a rare genetic disorder called 2-methylbutyryl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase deficiency. However, every test we've done has had… strange results, so we have to test the parents, which, in this case, means you."

House watched in satisfaction at the man's surprise. After a few minutes, Hoho shook his head. "I can't."

"Is that so?" House sighed. "I guess he was right about you. You really don't care about him at all."

"No, that's not it."

"It doesn't matter. Your son's dying. He's underweight and whatever's wrong with him has a better chance of killing him if his body's weak. We need to know."

Hoho hesitated for a moment before relenting. House grinned evilly when Hoho couldn't see him and took a blood sample. Later on, when Hoho was gone without even waiting for his son to wake up, he went to the lab to run some tests, none of which were for the disease with a really long name that I mentioned earlier. Actually, I don't even know if you use a blood test to determine that. I had someone else look it up for me. Meh. Blame the plothole monster.

---------------

Hoho had stayed in his son's room for maybe twenty minutes after encountering House. House observed from the hallway, having finally gotten out of clinic duty with the excuse that Ed's father was here. He watched as Hoho held out a hand, paused, looked at it, and let it drop to his lap. It was almost as if he were afraid to touch his son.

Chase wandered into the area a few minutes later and looked curiously at the scene. "Who's that guy?" he asked when he saw Hoho sitting next to Ed's bed.

"Guess."

Chase looked at the man for a minute before seeming to realize something. "Is that his father?"

"Yep."

"When did he get here?"

"He came with some moron who managed to get himself sick in a sterile room and I just happened to recognize him. Lucky me, huh?"

"Yeah, lucky they look the same," Chase muttered. "I think just about anyone could have figured that one out."

"Yeah, but I saw it first."

"Do you actually care that you were the first one to ever meet his father?"

"Yes."

Chase rolled his eyes before going back to observing Hoho. "He looks nervous."

"Probably afraid that his kid's going to wake up and break his nose," House replied.

"Ed wouldn't do that."

"You wanna bet?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

House reached for his wallet, paused, and took his hand out of his pocket. "Nah, let's wait until he's actually close to waking up."

"What do you mean by that? It's been eleven hours already."

"And he's been sleeping an average of two hours at a time, maybe… twice a day, for the past two weeks. I think he'll be asleep for a while longer."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say."

After a while, Hoho stood up and left the room. House and Chase watched from a distance as Hoho left the hospital.

"Okay…"

"Like I said," House said. "He's afraid of his own kids."

"So who wins the bet?"

House shrugged. "We'll just have to wait until those two meet when both are conscious."

----------------

Ed kept his eyes shut for a while when he woke up, trying to rid himself of the nauseous feeling that made him want to vomit once again, but to no avail. He sighed and opened his eyes to see Chase sitting nearby, reading a magazine of some sort. He looked up at Ed and closed it when he saw that Ed was awake.

"Good morning, sunshine," Chase said in a pathetically cheesy voice. Ed simply glared at him.

"Oh, I guess I need to work on my sarcastic wit, eh? I figured I should try to be more like House if I want to be as good a doctor as him."

"What time is it?" Ed managed to ask, ignoring Chase's pathetic attempts at humor.

"Around one in the morning," Chase answered. "How are you feeling?"

Ed was quiet. He didn't want to risk vomiting again.

"Still nauseous?"

Ed nodded and closed his eyes again.

"Well, I could probably get something for you to get rid of the nausea for a while. You're going to need to eat soon anyway."

Ed cringed at the mention of eating. He didn't think he'd be able to eat anything anytime soon…

"Ed?"

Ed made a small noise in reply.

"Your f- I mean, we should check your temperature again. House will want to know if it's gone up at all."

Ed grunted noncommittally and lay still as Chase took his temperature. He wanted to go back to sleep, but since he'd been sleeping for most of the day, it seemed an unlikely goal.

"Well, it hasn't gone up at all," Chase said. "That's a good sign."

Ed didn't even bother to acknowledge Chase this time. He just wished he didn't feel like he was going to die.

"Ed?"

Much to Ed's dismay, his response to Chase came in the form of a low whine. With that noise, there went any hopes Ed had of keeping any of his pride through this hospital stay.

"Are you really feeling that bad?" Chase asked.

Ed gave a small nod, his eyes still closed. The last thing he wanted to do was vomit… again…

"Okay… Listen, I'm going to put you on another medication. It should get rid of the nausea long enough for you to eat, and you really can't afford to not eat right now."

"Okay…" _Damn it, I sound pathetic._

"And then once you've eaten, you can go back to sleep."

Ed grunted again.

"So… other than the nausea, how are you feeling? Is there anything else bothering you?"

Ed thought about it for a moment before shaking his head.

"Okay, then. I guess we'll get you something to eat now."

Ed spent the next couple of hours in a daze. Thanks to whatever Chase had given him, he'd somehow managed to eat, but now that the nausea had calmed down, he became aware of other issues. When he finally got back to sleep, it came as a relief.

--------------

"So, he's getting worse. How about that?"

Chase rolled his eyes at House's comment. "I thought you said you knew what he has."

"No, I mentioned a possible disease to his daddy so that I could do some tests."

"So you lied to him."

"Yeah. I lied to someone who didn't even bother to stick around to see if his son would survive. Oh, I must be a horrible person to do such a thing."

"You could have at least made him stay until Ed woke up!"

House sighed. "You know, as much as I'd love to add to this hospital's number of patients, I doubt that letting Ed see his bastard father would do him any good. Besides, it's too late now, and we need to focus on the patient. How did he react to the anti-emetics you gave him?"

"Fine, but that doesn't mean anything."

"Yes it does. It means that this little boy doesn't have some unexplainable and unheard of disease that we'll never be able to cure."

"But we've tested him for everything that causes these symptoms."

"You sure about that?"

Chase blinked. "Pretty sure…"

"Let's get the gang together, just in case."

-------------

"Okay, let's start with the obvious: food poisoning."

House's team sighed in unison. This was going to be a long day…

"Salmonella."

"I tested for that," Chase said. "Not only does he not have diarrhea, but it came back negative."

"Lovely. Norwalk Virus?"

"I tested for that one," Foreman answered. "Same as Chase, came back negative, and he doesn't have all the symptoms."

"Great. Rotavirus?"

"Same thing," Cameron said. "Why are we going over these? They don't produce the same symptoms as the ones he has, unless he's just magically not getting diarrhea."

"What is it with you people and your obsessions with diarrhea?" House asked.

"It's a common symptom that comes from a lot of different kinds of food poisoning," Chase answered. "Why would he have only a few of the symptoms if it's already proving itself to be so severe?"

House rolled his eyes. "Fine, we'll move on. Gastritis?"

"Tested. Negative."

"Bowel obstruction?"

"Tested."

"Ileus?"

"…Tested."

"Maybe it's an eating disorder," House said in exasperation. "Did you test for that?"

"Surprisingly, yes, and that's not it."

"How about… Gastroenteritis?"

The room was silent for a moment. House observed his employees for a while, waiting for one of them to speak. "Any takers?"

"I thought Foreman was testing for that one," Chase said.

"I thought Cameron was doing it," Foreman said.

"I… thought one of you two was testing for that," Cameron said.

"And I stupidly thought you stupid people weren't stupid enough to stupidly make these stupid assumptions," House remarked, irritation in his voice. "Test it. Now. All three of you."

The three immediately stood up and left the room.

--------------

Oh snap.


	10. Chapter 10

So, yeah, here we go, new chapter, yay, celebration. And on a semi-related note, Microsoft Word decided to be a bitch and tell me my files were corrupted, so you came very close to getting a notice that the CSI/FMA fic is on hiatus because I lost a reasonably large chunk of the next chapter and I sunk into a depression somewhat like the one that came after chapter 76. Except this one would have had more rage involved.

But no, I retrieved it, and while it did something weird to the punctuation, that's much better than me having to rewrite the whole damn thing. However, this is shining light on the fact that I really, really need a new computer. It'd be nice to have more room for things, too. Hmm.

-----------------

"Gastroenteritis?" Roy asked, confusion evident on his face.

"You'd probably know it as the stomach flu," Foreman replied. "There was a misunderstanding when we were running tests, and this one was overlooked. Normally, he could be released now, but it would be better if he were under close supervision due to the amount of weight he's lost."

Roy's face remained emotionless as he nodded his consent. Ed had been sick enough lately, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Besides, the longer the alchemist was here, the longer they could protect this hospital. Once Foreman had left the room, Roy sat down next to Ed's bed, intent on spending at least an hour away from his paperwork-filled desk.

After a while, Roy heard a noise from the bed and looked over to see Ed rolling over onto his left side, his eyes screwed shut in what Roy recognized as sheer agony. Obviously Ed wasn't feeling much better.

"I have some good news, Fullmetal," Roy said.

"You're letting me die?" Ed mumbled sarcastically.

"No… they've found out what's wrong with you, and you'll be able to leave this hospital in a few days."

"That's nice…"

"You don't sound too happy, Fullmetal."

Ed let out a sound that sounded like a mix between a growl and a moan. "Where's Al?" he asked wearily.

"He said he'd stop by later today, but right now he's at the library."

Ed grunted in acknowledgement. "How long will it be again?"

"Just a few days. What you have isn't too bad on its own, but since you're underweight, they're keeping you here for a while."

"What is it?"

"The stomach flu."

Ed's eyebrow twitched. "It took them this long to figure that out?"

"That's right, Fullmetal, but look at it this way. Your presence here is what's allowing us to keep these people safe."

"I still hate you."

"Why me?"

"Because everyone already hates House. It means more if I say I hate you."

Roy snorted. "Yes, I am aware of his reputation, Fullmetal. Now then, I think this would be a good time to talk about your next mission."

"I'm going to be here for a while, bastard," Ed muttered.

Roy smiled. Ed seemed to be reverting to his old self. "Fine. I'll just tell you later."

It was quiet in the room for a while before Ed spoke again. "Why are you still here?"

"Paperwork back at the office," Roy answered simply.

"Get out."

Roy sat in the room for another half hour or so before actually leaving.

----------------

Two days later, Ed could actually sit and eat without feeling the need to vomit. He still spent most of his time sleeping, but when he was awake, he could actually function like a normal human being.

And thus, every time House came into the room, he had a source of amusement.

"Hey, how's it going?" he asked the teen, who was currently poking at one of the hospital's less popular meals.

"If it weren't for the fact that I'm stuck here longer than I need to be, I'd be great," Ed snapped. "In fact, I'd feel so wonderful that I wouldn't punch you in the face once I get the hell out of here."

"Once you're out of here, huh? What, are you afraid to hit me now?"

"Concerned. Concerned about how Mustang would react to that news. There's no way I'd ever be afraid of you," Ed spat.

"Is that so?" House asked. "Well, you know what comes now?" he continued as he pulled on a pair of gloves.

"If you get near my rectum I'll forget what I just said about Mustang," Ed growled in a threatening tone.

"Ew. Why would I do that? No, little Eddie, I have something else in mind this time."

Ed raised an eyebrow at House before scooting back on the bad as far as he could go. House waited a moment to build up the tension before standing up.

"Stand up."

Ed gave the doctor a confused look. "Huh?"

"You heard me. Stand up."

Ed cautiously stood on the other side of the bed, watching nervously as House made his way around and stopped right in front of him. Ed's eyes were about level with his shoulders, and the alchemist was forced to look up to meet the doctor's eyes.

"What are you doing?" Ed asked.

"You're still short. Darn, I thought we'd gotten rid of everything wrong with you," House said, easily blocking a punch from Ed with his cane.

"Why don't you concentrate on yourself?" Ed snapped. "Bastard!"

"Hey, calm down, you're putting too much stress on your body," House said, and then glanced at the clock to see how long it would take for Ed to realize that he was right. Last time it was about a minute, but maybe he'd last longer this time…

"I'm not putting stress on my body," Ed growled. "If anything, you're stressing me out with your snide comments."

"Snide? Why, did you learn a new vocabulary word in my absence?" House asked. "Well done, Edward. Very well done."

"Shut up!"

"Whoa there, it was just a compliment," House said, glancing at the clock again. 20 seconds and Ed was still going strong. Not bad, but it was still too short to tell if it was an improvement.

"That wasn't a compliment," Ed replied. "It…"

House watched as Ed stopped. Okay, either he had lost his energy, or he couldn't think of a good comeback. House hoped it was both.

After a moment, Ed lay back down on the bed, and House watched as he rolled onto his side. Something wasn't right here…

"Hey, tiny, what's wrong?" House asked, walking around to look Ed in the face.

"Headache," Ed muttered.

"Oh, well, that's boring," House said, although he was intrigued. "Anything else?"

"Other than the fact that your voice is even more irritating than usual?" Ed snapped before clutching his head and screwing his eyes shut.

Yes indeed, this was very intriguing…

"Seriously. Anything else?"

"Dunno," Ed mumbled into his pillow. "Go away."

House quickly checked his patient's forehead and sighed. Sadly enough, the kid didn't have a fever, but hey, he could have some fun before he actually treated him…

"Hey, answer something for me," House said. "Were you in contact with any animals during your little trip?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ed asked.

"Just answer the question."

"No. Unless you count the cows that I never went near."

"Okay, then. How about fangirls?"

"…What?"

"Fangirls have been known to be rabid," House stated.

Ed looked up at House through one eye. "Are you saying I have rabies?"

"Well, it seems you're suffering from encephalitis, which is common in people who get rabies, and at this stage… Well, once it gets to this stage… I'm sorry."

Ed was quiet for a good minute before looking up at House with an evil glint in his eyes. "You know, you're not very funny."

"Aw, you saw right through it? Damn, and here I thought I could make you have a greater appreciation for life."

"Stop being so loud," Ed mumbled. "My head hurts."

"Oh, fine. Hey, Foreman!"

Foreman folded his arms and watched from the doorway. "What?"

"The kid's got a headache. Help him out, would ya?" House ordered as he made his way out of the room.

---------------

The next couple of days passed by without any large incidents, and finally the time came to release Ed from the hospital. There was much rejoicing as Chase told Ed the good news, except for one dark corner, where a pink-haired lad sat with his head in his knees.

"Why? Why was I only briefly mentioned?"

"What's wrong?" asked Cameron, who happened to be in the room with the lad.

"I'm Ed's official hallucination, and the only time Ed saw me was in the middle of a dream!"

"Uh… I'm sorry…?"

"It's not fair! I could have been brought up numerous times! Why did she choose not to give Ed a hallucination-causing disease?"

"Who?"

"Junodog! The master of us all!" Shuichi screamed. (It's true, ya know)

"Um… right," Cameron said. "Well, I'll just… go tell Ed how much you missed seeing him…"

Shuichi sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes. "Thank you."

And thus, Cameron's sanity was questioned.

But that's a story for another day.

Meanwhile, Ed was slowly pulling on his clothes, testing his legs as he walked around in the small bathroom. They were stiff from having to lie in bed for so long, but they were still functional. Ed smiled to himself as he walked out of the bathroom, wearing his own clothes for the first time in two weeks.

"You ready?" Chase asked.

"For what?" Ed asked in return, giving Chase a weird look.

"The thing with the wheelchair and the elevator to make your exit more dramatic," Chase answered.

"…Huh?"

Chase pointed to the wheelchair. "You sit in that as we go downstairs, and then once the elevator doors open and we push you out, you stand up and walk proudly out of the hospital. It's some weird thing we do at random here."

"Uh…"

"But if you object to it then you can just do this the less dramatic and somehow less pride-bruising way," Chase offered.

"Yeah, I think I'll go with that…"

"All right, then. Let's go."

Once in the lobby, Ed noted that half the people seemed to be staring at him. He scowled and continued walking, completely ignoring the pessimistic bastard who was now walking beside him.

"What, no goodbyes?" House asked.

"Shut up. Just because you saved my life doesn't mean I have to like you."

"Not even a thank you? I'm hurt."

"Yeah, well, get over it."

"Ouch. Harsh."

Ed continued walking until he had reached Mustang before turning to House. "Just think about the fact that I haven't broken your nose."

House thoughtfully touched a hand to his face. "You're welcome."

At that, Ed turned to Roy. "Can we go now?"

Roy sighed. "Hawkeye's outside. However, I have some things to discuss, so you're going to have to wait a while."

Ed groaned. "Couldn't you have done this earlier?"

"No."

At this, Ed scowled and walked out of the hospital building. Hell, if Mustang wanted to waste his time, he might as well spend it with someone pleasant, or at the very least, someone who hadn't cleaned his vomit on a regular basis. He greeted the lieutenant and practically collapsed in the back seat of the car.

"You're not going to thank them?" Hawkeye asked, gesturing to the building.

"Not with every single employee in the building staring at me," Ed replied. "Besides, I get the feeling I'll probably see them again."

Hawkeye smiled and went back to polishing her gun. "It's good to see you out of there."

Ed grunted in reply and fell back onto the seat. He closed his eyes, and without realizing it, began dozing. He was about to fall asleep when all hell broke loose.

----------------

And just when you think it's over… Sadly, though, we are coming to an end, so REVIEW! REVIEW LIKE THE WIND AND MAKE THIS THE FIRST FIC OF MINE WITH 100 REVIEWS! If you do so, then my self-esteem will rise and I shall be a happy writer and full of creativity and more posts. See? It works out for everyone that way! (and this also marks the first time that I can recall asking for reviews…)


	11. Chapter 11

So, this chapter's pretty short, but there will be another one. And… that'll be the end. I promise, though, I am planning on getting that random stories fic up, it'll be random crossovers between my fics, and uh… Yeah, I talked about it in the last chapter of Playing With Numb3rs (which I still think is a kinda dorky name…)

--------------

Inside the building, Roy was speaking to Cuddy about something else. In truth, he was grateful that Ed had chosen to go out to the car, because this way there was less of a chance of him ruining Roy's reputation at this hospital. Besides, this was the ultimate revenge for what Ed had done to his office last month.

"Are you serious?" Cuddy asked. She seemed to be in shock.

"Very much so. Fullmetal is a very important asset to the military, and if it hadn't been for this hospital, he would have died. Just think of it as equivalent exchange."

"Yeah, but this… this isn't exactly equivalent."

"To the military, and to those close to him, it's more than worth it. Besides, I'm sure it will make up for his behavior."

Cuddy shook her head. "If it was about behavior, we should be paying you."

"I can hear you, you know," House called from exam room 1.

"Get back to work," Cuddy shouted back before smiling at Roy. "Well, thank you. But won't that put a strain on your budget?"

"It wasn't being used anyway," Roy answered. "Now-"

At that particular moment, there was an explosion just outside the building, one that would have destroyed the place if it had been any closer. Roy immediately pulled on his gloves and nodded at Hawkeye through the glass doors. So it had come to this.

"They're here," Roy stated before turning back to Cuddy. "You remember what we discussed earlier, correct?"

To her credit, Cuddy managed to get over her shock quickly enough to give a faint nod. Roy nodded to the other soldiers in the room before they headed outside. Now was their time to act.

----------------

The eight-year-old boy that House was currently treating nearly had a heart attack when the explosion outside went off, but once Cuddy poked her head into the room and told House what was going on, and once the kid's dad went out to see what he could do to help, the kid managed to stay quiet. For a while, at least.

"Are we gonna die?" he asked after a while, looking up at the window in the exam room.

"Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends."

"On what?"

House walked over to the window and looked outside at the madness. "On how well I treated my last patient."

That put the boy even more on edge, but House ignored it. He could faintly make out the red coat that Ed had been wearing upon his arrival and on his departure. The kid moved pretty fast for just getting out of the hospital. This was definitely one of the more interesting days he'd experienced lately.

"Your last patient? Is he out there?"

"Oh, yeah." House put a stool next to the window and pointed. "See the midget out there with the red coat?"

The kid stood on the stool and looked out the window next to House. "Yeah. He's really fast."

"Not fast enough, apparently," House remarked as another explosion went off, sending Ed flying. "Considering how hard he just hit his head, he'll have to be checked for brain damage."

"You can tell from here?" the kid asked, wonder in his voice.

"Yep."

Some soldier grabbed him and House lost interest. He pulled out his DS and started playing while the kid continued to watch the action.

"Whoa, that guy just set someone on fire!"

"Cool. You know, you might not want to watch that. Your mommy might get upset."

"My mom's in prison," the kid replied. "Wow, those bad guys are done for!"

"And now it's time for me to do my job," House said, opening the door just as Cuddy was about to open it. "I'm guessing I'm the only doctor down here who can give emergency treatment?"

"Yeah. I'm sure you'll just love treating the same kid again," Cuddy replied as two people brought Ed into the room. The kid moved out of the way and stood quietly in the room, unsure of what to do next.

"Here, why don't you play with this for a while?" House asked, handing the kid the DS as Cuddy led him out into the main area. House immediately got to work, helping the one remaining nurse pull Ed's clothes off while avoiding the sharp blade now formed on Ed's right arm. Yep, this was going to be fun.

-----------------

"_This isn't working! Give him 200 CCs of progesterone now!"_

Progesterone? Why would I need that…?

"_It's not working either! We're gonna lose him!" Foreman shouted._

"_Try Vicodin!" House snapped back. "We can't give up yet!"_

"_He's unconscious! He doesn't need painkillers right now!" Chase protested._

"_Just do it!"_

What the hell is going on?

"_It did nothing! We're losing him!"_

"_Perform C(at)P(ressing)R(esuscitation)!"_

_Once Ed felt the cat on his chest, he felt a pressing need to actually open his eyes, but he was blindfolded. Something was definitely wrong here…_

"_Nothing!"_

"_Let me do it!" called a familiar voice. Ed finally removed the blindfold to see Shuichi sprint up with a giant hammer in hand. The pink-haired fiend grinned maniacally and brought the hammer down on Ed's head…_

And Ed's eyes snapped open for real. He lay still for a minute, trying to catch his breath. Damn, first he had nightmares and now this? He took another breath and finally regained the rest of his senses. And boy, was that painful.

"Hey, you didn't die," came a painfully familiar voice from Ed's left side. Ed looked up to see House sitting next to him.

"What…" Ed paused, his eyes shutting on him because of the pain that was pulsing through his head.

"You went flying through the air and skidded on the ground after you landed and hit your head," House explained as he poked Ed's left arm, sending waves of pain through the limb. "You hit your head and scraped most of your left side up pretty badly. So no, sadly enough, you aren't dying from some unknown disease, but you'll have a headache for the next week."

Ed groaned and closed his eyes. Well, at least he hadn't done too much damage to himself this time.

"I have to admit, though, I'm impressed," House continued. Ed felt a small flame of pride flare up inside him, but it was soon drenched. "You've set a new record for this hospital. Ten minutes after you leave, you come back for something completely different. That's the shortest time anyone's ever been able to stay away."

"You…" Ed tried to lift his right arm to punch House in the face, but he soon found that he couldn't. It was restrained. He would have used his left hand, but that would be too painful for him…

"Oh, yeah, your arm's still a weapon," House pointed out. "We didn't want you accidentally stabbing someone."

"Or doing it on purpose," Ed retorted before pushing himself up to get rid of the blade. He was in his boxers, and there were a few scrapes on his leg just above where the automail connected, and the automail itself was covered in parallel scratches. Ed quickly got rid of the blade on his arm before falling back on the small patient bed on which he lay. This was all incredibly painful…

"You aren't going to take the restraint off?" House asked, pointing to Ed's right arm.

"Too much effort," Ed muttered. "I don't have to stay here again, do I?"

"Sadly, no. We'll just do a scan on your head to make sure there aren't any problems and then you're free to go."

"Good."

"Oh, I should probably have tested you first thing. Oh, well. You still know what day it is, right?"

"No. I haven't known that since I don't know how long you people kept me trapped here," Ed retorted. "Nobody bothered to keep me updated."

"Okay, fine," House sighed. "How many fingers am I poking you with?"

Ed felt two simultaneous jabs on his arm and he unconsciously let out a cry of pain before shouting, "Two! Damn it, that hurt!"

"Okay, that's good enough for me," House replied. "Here, have some Vicodin."

Ed looked from House to the pill in his hand and back again. This seemed too much like his dream for some reason.

"No thanks," Ed muttered, closing his eyes and shifting to lie on his right side.

"Okay, fine. More for me."

Ed grunted again and took a deep breath, just as he heard the door open. He opened his eyes, but he didn't bother to look up. He'd probably find out soon enough anyway.

"Hey, we're ready for him," said a somewhat familiar male voice.

"Great. Hey, midget!"

Ed snapped up, immediately regretting his actions as pain flooded his left side, and glared at House instead of wincing. There was another doctor standing in the doorway, one that Ed wasn't sure he had seen during his stay.

"Come on, we're checking your head now," House said, gesturing for Ed to follow him as he made his way to the door. Ed stayed where he was for a moment. He wasn't sure if he wanted to follow House right now, especially since there were a lot of people out in the main area who seemed to be watching the room he was in. House seemed to realize this and turned around. "Come on. It's a hospital. Nobody cares how you look."

Ed scowled and got to his feet. He took one step with his left leg, put his weight on it, and immediately fell over. _Well,_ he thought. _There goes my automail. Again._

"Ooh, you broke your leg!" House exclaimed, a childish excitement present in his voice. Ed groaned as he pushed himself up. And to think, he'd thought his life would get better starting today…

---------------

The second time he was allowed out of the hospital, Ed was much more excited. He'd had enough delays, and Mustang had promised to give him at least a week off instead of sending him on his next mission right away. As he left the hospital, Ed gave everyone he'd met a polite thanks.

Everyone except for House.

"Hey, why are you leaving me out?" House asked as he followed Ed and Mustang to the door. Ed rolled his eyes and turned to face the doctor.

"Do you want me to break your nose?"

House stopped mid-stride and fell back a bit. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a question. Or have you been too busy asking them to know how to answer one?"

"Whoa there. No need to be all snippy. And no, I'd rather not have my nose broken today."

Ed curled his right hand into a fist, looked at it for a moment to draw House's attention to it, and then brought it up into the doctor's face. He stopped himself when his fist was half an inch from House's nose. Then Ed dropped his hand.

"Consider that half inch that 'thank you' you're obviously desperate for," Ed growled.

"Aw, you're welcome. I'll treasure the memory until I'm old and using a cane. Oh, wait, I already am," House replied.

Ed snorted and followed Mustang out the door, slamming the door behind him before visibly wincing. House stared out the glass at the two retreating figures for a while. He didn't acknowledge that Cuddy was standing next to him.

"You know, we got a substantial donation from the military because of this," Cuddy remarked.

"Is that so?"

"Yep. Mustang's a pretty good guy."

"Who paid for the kid's treatment?"

Cuddy shook her head sadly. "State Alchemists get a higher research budget than you get paid in a year. He took it out of Edward's account."

"Did he ask?"

"No. He doesn't need to."

There was a crash and a scream from outside, and House watched as Ed tried to break out of Riza Hawkeye's grasp. "Well, I think he knows about it now."

------------------

So, next chapter won't really be part of the story, just little things I wanted to write that kinda sorta have something to do with the main plotline…


	12. Chapter 12

Ugh, finally…

Ugh, finally…

CHAPTER BREAK.

"Hey, I have something for you."

House looked up to see Wilson standing in front of his desk, a newspaper in hand. "Is that so?" he asked. "Is it something interesting or is it just some news about some patient I've had at some point in time?"

"Both." Wilson dropped the paper on House's desk. "It turns out that the Fullmetal Alchemist is getting himself into something big."

House picked up the paper. Despite his urge to pretend he didn't care, something about his little alchemist patient made him want to know what Wilson was talking about. He looked at the article.

"Well, well, he's been attacked by a serial killer. That's not good."

"You actually care about him now?"

House stood up and made his way to the other room, where his team sat around the table. "No, but Chase bet me that the kid would end up having enemies by the end of the year. Now I owe him 20."

CHAPTER BREAK.

"So, how exactly is it that we're up in the North now?" Cameron asked.

"Some guy named Benji, I think," House replied. "Don't you have a patient to treat?"

Cameron sighed and got up. "You mean the patient you told Cuddy you'd be meticulously watching in case of a problem?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Fine, but you owe me," Cameron snapped as she headed to the door. Once it was closed, House leaned back in his chair and brought his legs up to rest on the desk. Only a few more hours before he could get out of this place…

There was a knock on the door. House looked up to see a familiar small blonde enter the room and walk up to his desk, a familiar scowl on his face and a bandage on his forehead.

"Can I help you?" House asked. "Don't tell me you're dying again."

"You knew."

House blinked before casually looking back up at the ceiling. "I know everything, surprising as it may be. What are you complaining about?"

Ed glared at House and clenched his hands into fists. "You know what I'm talking about. You knew about Al."

"Oh, yeah, that. Good job, you figured it out all by yourself."

"Why the hell did you do that to me?"

House sighed, pulled his legs off the desk, and leaned forward. "I saved your life so that you could help your little brother. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Not if it means he has to starve to death!" Ed snapped. "How the hell does that help either of us?"

"Look, it was either you or him, and since it was _you_ who happened to be the dying patient, I made a choice."

"But-"

"How do you think he's getting anything he needs in the first place?" House asked. When Ed didn't speak, House continued. "If I had left it as is, you either would have died, leaving your little brother with _nothing_, or you would have been stuck in the hospital, on a very closely monitored diet, with no hopes of ever going out and doing the research you so desperately need to do. And that's ignoring the fact that you were living out your brother's thoughts in your dreams. You were becoming an insomniac, and how well do you think that would have worked out for either of you?" House held his cane and observed it, avoiding the alchemist's gaze. "Your brother might not be in great shape now, but at least you have a chance of getting him back before he dies."

It was quiet for a moment. Ed was looking down at his feet, and after a while, he looked back up. "You could have at least told me."

"Oh, you wanted to know? Whoops."

Ed scowled. "You really are a bastard, you know that?"

"Yeah. I think I figured that one out. Anything else you want to bug me about?"

Ed stood his ground. "Al said someone came in. Where is this person?"

"You know, I forgot," House replied. "Sorry."

Ed took two steps forward, clapped his hands, placed one on House's cane, and turned and stormed out of the office. House took one look at his cane and immediately followed Ed. There was no way in hell he was going to let the kid off the hook for that.

"Hey, as much as I enjoy your demonic sense of style, this isn't the right place for it," House said as he chased the much quicker alchemist down the hall. Ed ignored him and turned a corner, obviously heading for the stairs. As soon as House turned that corner, though, he was relieved to see that Ed had been stopped, by none other than Chase.

"I haven't seen you in a while," Chase was saying as House finally caught up. "How have you been?"

"Not too bad," Ed replied, noticing House and giving him a death glare that almost scared the doctor. "Considering the fact that I just wasted a lot of time and effort on research."

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you didn't learn _anything_ from all that time," House retorted.

"…Did I miss something?" Chase asked. "And what's with your cane?"

"It's my way of expressing my gratitude," Ed said.

"Well, I'd be grateful if you'd turn it back," House snapped. "I hate it."

"Too bad," Ed retorted. "I have more important things to do, things I _could_ have done earlier if you'd told me about Al."

"Wait, wait, what about Al?" Chase asked.

"Nothing. See you," Ed said before turning and walking away.

As soon as he was gone, Chase turned to House and asked, "What was that about?"

"I have no idea," House lied.

"What's he doing up here, anyway?"

"Probably some military business," House said as he turned and began walking back to his office. "But you know what they say about having automail up north."

"What, you really think–"

"Yep," House interrupted. "He's gonna die."

CHAPTER BREAK.

Wow, short chapter.

So yeah, guess what? I got a spontaneous idea, and so even though this is officially the last chapter, I'm gonna add a few because it's not quite enough to make a sequel worthwhile.


	13. Chapter 13

So yeah, I'm gonna try to start updating semi-regularly again

So yeah, I'm gonna try to start updating semi-regularly again. Here's that extra spontaneous idea I mentioned.

And just as a friendly reminder: references to plothole monster in the title mean plotholes in the story that are poorly disguised with humor. Meaning I'm too damn lazy to do more than half-assed research on any subject within the story. Anyway, enjoy.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

"So, why did you decide to hiking in Amestris again?" Chase asked Cameron as they hiked through the snow.

"Because I was bored, and it just seemed like a good idea," Cameron replied. "You didn't have to join me, you know."

"What, and leave you to the bears?" Chase joked. "But seriously, this has got to be one of the worst ideas you've ever had."

Cameron rolled her eyes and continued walking. "Well, looks like we're close to the top of this hill, so if you're dying, we can turn back after we get up there."

"Good. I'm sick of this."

Cameron ignored that comment as she got to the top. From there, she looked down at the valley in front of them, a vast expanse of white with the occasional pine tree. The mountains in the distance were breathtaking, and in the distance she could see a town. "Okay, Chase, you have to admit this is a pretty awesome view," she said as her coworker walked up beside her.

"Oh, yeah, it's great," Chase replied sarcastically. "Especially since we can see people who've probably been lost for days walking just below us."

Cameron looked down. Sure enough, there were two men walking side by side, one of which was carrying a red bundle on his back. They looked as if they hadn't shaved for days, and…

"Oh my god, that guy's got a mane," she said, pointing at the one with the red bundle.

Chase looked. "Yeah, and he's got… is that a snout?"

"I'm just going to assume they're chimeras. Hey!" Cameron shouted. "Are you guys okay?"

"What are you doing?" Chase hissed as the two turned and began walking up the hill. "They'll probably attack us now!"

Cameron ignored him as she walked down to meet the two. She couldn't be sure what it was, but something told her to meet them. "What are you doing out here?" she asked when they were within decent hearing range.

"I could ask you the same question," the lion man replied, though he seemed very uncomfortable.

"We're hiking," Cameron explained. It was then that she noticed the arms hanging over the lion man's shoulders, one automail, with a blade . "Do… you need help? I am a doctor."

The two exchanged glances before the lion man turned back to her. "Our companion was injured when an old mining tower collapsed, and we can't exactly draw attention to ourselves at the moment."

Cameron and Chase exchanged glances. "Why is that?" Chase asked.

"We've… had some problems with the military. That's actually how he was injured in the first place."

"I thought you said a tower collapsed," Chase pointed out.

"…It wasn't an accident."

"…Oh," Chase said. "Well… can we take a look?"

They gently placed the boy on the ground, and as she looked down at him, Cameron nearly kicked herself for not noticing it before.

"Hey… it's Ed," Chase said, sounding both surprised and concerned. Cameron nodded and unzipped Ed's red coat before pushing his shirt up, wincing when she saw the damage to Ed's side.

"How'd you stop the bleeding?" she asked in surprise. With this kind of injury, they would have had to bandage it.

"He used alchemy," the gorilla man said.

"That's right, he's got experience in that area," Chase remarked. "What happened?"

"He was impaled."

"He needs to be in a hospital," Cameron said as she pulled out the first aid kit she'd brought with her. "Look, we work in a hospital nearby…"

"The one that moves around the country for no apparent reason?" the gorilla man asked. "But the military's there most of the time."

"Not right now. There hasn't been a need for their presence for a while," Chase said. "Look, it's probably the best option you've got right now. It's the closest, we've treated him before, and we're under no legal obligation to report him."

"Right… where is it again?"

"It's about a mile or so from here," Cameron replied as she finished up. "We should get going before he freezes to death."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

By the time they arrived at the hospital, several things had been worked out. Cameron had gotten a detailed account of the incident, the chimeras had hidden their furry forms, and Chase had somehow managed to detach the blade from Ed's right arm. The only dilemma left was how to deal with the fact that Ed had no way to pay without notifying the military to his whereabouts.

"Maybe we can convince Cuddy that he's a John Doe," Chase said halfheartedly as they arrived outside the hospital's front door.

"No, she'd just have to look at his eyes. Ed's are too easy to remember."

Chase sighed as he led the group inside. "Let's just get him checked in. We'll deal with this later."

"Deal with what later?"

Both Chase and Cameron started at the sound of Cuddy's voice. "Well, we uh… found something on our hike," Chase began, gesturing to Ed.

Cuddy took one look at the boy and waved a few of the staff over to take Ed inside before turning to Chase and Cameron. "Come with me."

Once they were in Cuddy's office, Cuddy sat down and gestured for them to do the same. "You know, Edward Elric paid twice as much as he should have to cover his expenses, but he never found out because his commanding officer never told him."

"So…" Chase began, not understanding what Cuddy was getting at.

"According to Colonel Mustang, a situation like this was inevitable. He wants to avoid contact with the military, right?"

"Yeah, but how did you know that?" Cameron asked.

"Because of how you were acting when you came in. Anyway, he's already paid for treatment. I'm assigning you two to his case, since he's proved to be a difficult patient in the past and you two have past experience with him."

"What about House?"

Cuddy paused. "Don't tell him. I'd rather avoid a homicide investigation."

LOL HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION LOL CHAPTER BREAK LOL

"How's he doing?" Chase asked as they entered the ICU. Ed was currently lying on a bed in the corner, hooked up to all the regular devices to monitor his condition.

"He's doing fine," the nurse said.

"I'll stay here and wait for him to wake up," Cameron said. Chase nodded and went to take care of some other things.

Considering how long it had taken him to get help, he was doing fairly well. His wounds hadn't been aggravated at all, and though his foot had some minor frostbite, it wasn't enough to have a permanent effect. The worst they had to worry about at the moment was how Ed would react to waking up in a hospital. From what the chimeras had said, he'd been pretty insistent on going after the one who had inadvertently done this to him.

It was about ten minutes later when she saw House walking in the distance, but before he could get close enough to see her, Chase walked up to him with some files and began talking to him. Once they had turned away, she went back to watching Ed.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

The constant beeping and hum of machinery was the first thing that encouraged him to wake up and open his eyes. The ceiling looked familiar, and while he wasn't sure if he had been in this room, he recognized the style, from the bed to the windows to the hallway in front of him.

He let out an irritated sigh, ignoring the jolt of pain in his side, and raised his hand to his face. Sure enough, that thing was on his finger, and there was a tube attached to his arm.

"Ed?"

Ed looked up to see Cameron standing above him, and that confirmed it beyond all doubt. He was stuck in a hospital. But not just any hospital, he was in the one with the psychotic doctor.

"Why am I here?" he asked.

"Your friends decided they'd rather risk your wrath than let you run around without a kidney," she answered.

Ed scowled. "And I suppose they didn't mention the fact that Winry could be dead by now."

"Actually, they did mention that," Cameron replied. "They also told me about the tower. Ed, you were in no condition to go after that guy, and you won't be until…" she stopped at that word, and looked surprisingly sad.

"Until what?" Ed asked, ignoring the sudden change in Cameron's attitude.

"Ed, you lost a kidney. If you do anything that could damage your remaining kidney, you could die."

Ed rolled his eyes. "I could have died when I lost my arm and leg."

Cameron sighed. "You're not taking this seriously. If someone _kicks_ you in the wrong place, you could die."

"Then why don't you just tell the military that? I'm sure nobody would even think of touching me then."

Cameron gave him a confused look. "I thought you were trying to hide from the military."

"I am, but if they wanted me dead I'd have been dead for months now," Ed retorted.

"Well, it sounds like someone didn't get the memo," Cameron said. "You're going to be here for a while, so you should just stop trying to convince us otherwise."

Ed frowned. "That sounded oddly like something your boss would say."

"Sorry, Ed, but I'm just trying to prevent a lot of headaches. Oh, and I was told to restrain you if you try to leave your bed without permission, so you might not want to make a break for it until you can walk without the risk of opening your wound."

Ed wasn't sure what to say to that one, so he simply stared after Cameron as she left the room.

LOLOL BONDAGE LOLOLOLOLOL

The irritated sigh was audible from across the room as Cameron sat down at the table. Chase looked up from the newspaper he was reading and gave her a curious look.

"I take it he reacted as expected?"

"If he masters sarcasm we'll have another House on our hands," Cameron replied. "He's already bitter and angry."

"And a cripple," Chase added as he went back to reading. "I'll go see him next time."

"Okay," House said as he entered the room. "Who wants to take over my clinic duty this afternoon?"

"Can't. We've got a patient," Cameron replied.

House turned and looked at them. "What's he got?"

"Well, his kidney magically disappeared after a mining tower collapsed," Chase said. "Cuddy assigned us to him."

"The case of the missing kidney, huh? Why would Cuddy assign you to something as boring as that?"

"Because we've dealt with him before and he's going through a very rough time in his personal life," Chase replied. "Go ask Foreman if you need to get out of there so badly."

House sighed and went into his office. "If anyone asks, I'm in the bathroom."

As soon as the door closed, both doctors breathed a sigh of relief.

"You know, I see the logic behind it, but why would Cuddy want to keep them apart so badly?" Chase asked.

"Because Ed has no problem with beating the crap out of House and he's angry right now," Cameron replied. "Don't you remember the dozens of times he tried to punch House in the face?"

"Oh, right, the possibility of attempted murder. Should we be worried? After all, we treated him too."

"He might try it with you," Cameron said as Foreman entered the room. "I think I was nice enough to keep him from getting violent with me."

"Who is this?" Foreman asked as he went to get himself some coffee.

"A patient," Cameron answered noncommittally.

"Oh, right. The one we're all supposed to keep a secret from House. How's he doing?"

"Well, physically, he should be fine in a few weeks, and judging by how quickly he got pissed off at me, he's dealing with the emotional part just fine."

"Wait, why is he pissed at you?" Foreman asked.

"Because I'm the one who told him he's stuck here _and_ I'm the one who threatened him with restraints if he tries to get out of here."

"Why does he want to get out?"

"Because his life sucks and he has more important things to do," Chase replied. "Plus you remember how much he likes hospitals."

"Last time he didn't think there was anything wrong with him until he started vomiting all over the place."

"Well, this time he doesn't care that there's something wrong."

Foreman was about to reply when House entered through the door. "Are you talking about me in here?"

"Nope," Cameron answered.

"Darn, I thought you were planning my surprise party. Hey, Foreman, want to do some clinic duty?"

"No, not really," Foreman replied. "Why don't you just suck it up and do it yourself?"

"Because that just wouldn't be fun. If anyone comes looking for me, I'm in the bathroom."


End file.
